2025 Best Public Policy Bachelor's Degree Schools in Illinois

If you plan on getting your bachelor's degree in public policy, you won't be alone since the degree program is ranked #121 in the country in terms of popularity. So, you have a fair amount of options to choose from when looking for a school.

In 2025, College Factual analyzed 3 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Public Policy Bachelor's Degree Schools in Illinois ranking. Combined, these schools handed out 163 bachelor's degrees in public policy to qualified students.

What's on this page: * Our Methodology

• Best Bachelor’s Degree Schools List

Choosing a Great Public Policy School for Your Bachelor's Degree

Your choice of public policy for getting your bachelor's degree school matters. This section explores some of the factors we include in our ranking and how much they vary depending on the school you select. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:

Overall Quality Is a Must

The overall quality of a bachelor's degree school is important to ensure a quality education, not just how well they do in a particular major. To account for this we include a college's overall Best Colleges ranking which itself looks at a collection of different factors like degree completion, educational resources, student body caliber and post-graduation earnings for the school as a whole.

Average Early-Career Salaries

Average early-career salary of those graduating with their bachelor's degree is one indicator we use in our analysis to find the schools that offer the highest-quality education. After all, your bachelor's degree won't mean much if it doesn't help you find a job that will help you earn a living.

Other Factors We Consider

The metrics below are just some of the other metrics that we use to determine our rankings.

• Major Focus - How much a school focuses on public policy students vs. other majors.
• Major Demand - The number of public policy students who choose to seek a bachelor's degree at the school.
• Educational Resources - How many resources are allocated to students. These resources may include educational expenditures per student, number of students per instructor, and graduation rate among other things.
• Student Debt - How easy is it for public policy to pay back their student loans after receiving their bachelor's degree.
• Accreditation - Whether a school is regionally accredited and/or accredited by a recognized public policy related body.

Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for public policy students working on their bachelor's degree.

One Size Does Not Fit All

Since picking the right college can be one of the most important decisions of your life, we've developed the Best Public Policy Bachelor's Degree Schools in Illinois ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.

To further help you make the college decision, we've developed a unique tool called College Combat that allows you to compare schools based on the factors that matter the most to you. Go ahead and give it a try, or bookmark the link so you can check it out later.

Best Schools for Bachelor’s Students to Study Public Policy in Illinois

The following list ranks the best colleges and universities for pursuing a bachelor's degree in public policy.

Top Illinois Schools for a Bachelor's in Public Policy

1

University of Chicago
Chicago, IL

90 Annual Graduates

$60,057 Median Starting Salary

University of Chicago is one of the finest schools in the United States for getting a bachelor's degree in public policy. UChicago is a large private not-for-profit university located in the large city of Chicago.

Bachelor's recipients from the public policy degree program at University of Chicago make $12,117 more than the standard college graduate in this field when they enter the workforce.

More information about a bachelor’s in public policy from University of Chicago

2

Northwestern University
Evanston, IL

36 Annual Graduates

$48,558 Median Starting Salary

It's hard to beat Northwestern University if you wish to pursue a bachelor's degree in public policy. Located in the small city of Evanston, Northwestern is a private not-for-profit university with a very large student population.

Soon after graduation, public policy bachelor's recipients generally earn an average of $48,558 in the first five years of their career.

More information about a bachelor’s in public policy from Northwestern University

3

University of Illinois at Chicago
Chicago, IL

27 Annual Graduates

$35,205 Median Starting Salary

It's hard to beat University of Illinois at Chicago if you wish to pursue a bachelor's degree in public policy. Located in the large city of Chicago, UIC is a public university with a fairly large student population.

Soon after graduating, public policy bachelor's recipients usually make an average of $35,205 at the beginning of their careers.

More information about a bachelor’s in public policy from University of Illinois at Chicago

Best Public Policy Colleges in the Great Lakes Region

Explore all the Best Public Policy Colleges in the Great Lakes Area or other specific states within that region.

State	Colleges	Degrees Awarded
Michigan	261	97
Ohio	252	22

View All Rankings >

Public Policy Related Rankings by Major

Public Policy is one of 4 different types of Public Administration & Social Service programs to choose from.

Public Policy Concentrations

Major	Annual Graduates
General Public Policy Analysis	153
International Policy Analysis	10

Majors Similar to Public Policy

Related Major	Annual Graduates
Community Organization & Advocacy	80
Human Services	38
Other Public Administration	28
Public Administration	9

Notes and References

• The bars on the spread charts above show the distribution of the schools on this list +/- one standard deviation from the mean.
• The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), a branch of the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) serves as the core of the rest of our data about colleges.
• Some other college data, including much of the graduate earnings data, comes from the U.S. Department of Education’s (College Scorecard).
• Credit for the banner image above goes to The Official CTBTO Photostream. More about our data sources and methodologies.