When it comes to popularity, a bachelor's degree in public administration & social service sits in the middle of the road, ranking #16 out of 38 majors in the country. As such, the degree program isn't offered at every college in the United States, but there are schools that do have a program in the field that are top-notch when it comes to quality.
In 2025, College Factual analyzed 16 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Public Administration & Social Service Bachelor's Degree Schools in the Rocky Mountains Region ranking. Combined, these schools handed out 1,198 bachelor's degrees in public administration & social service to qualified students.
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Choosing a Great Public Administration & Social Service School for Your Bachelor's Degree
The public administration & social service bachelor's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. Important measures of a quality public administration & social service program can vary widely even among the top schools. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
Quality Overall Is Important
The overall quality of a bachelor's degree school is important to ensure a good education, not just how well they do in a particular major. To take this into account we include a school'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 Earnings
To determine the overall quality of a graduate school, one factor we look at is the average early-career salary of those receiving their bachelor's degree from the school. This is because one of the main reasons people pursue their bachelor's degree is to enable themselves to find better-paying positions.
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 administration & social service students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - The number of public administration & social service 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 administration & social service 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 administration & social service related body.
Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for public administration & social service students working on their bachelor's degree.
The public administration & social service school you choose to invest your time and money in matters. To help you make the decision that is right for you, we've developed a number of major-specific rankings, including this list of the Best Public Administration & Social Service Bachelor's Degree Schools in the Rocky Mountains Region.
In addition to College Factual's rankings, you may want to take a look at College Combat, our unique tool that lets you pit your favorite schools head-to-head and compare how they rate on factors that most interest you.
When you have some time, check it out - you may want to bookmark the link so you don't forget it.
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Improve the lives of individuals, families and communities with the human service tools gained from this online bachelor's from Southern New Hampshire University.
Prepare yourself to make the decisions that best serve a community, its constituents and its economic growth with this specialized business degree from Southern New Hampshire University.
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).
by our College Data Analytics Team
The public administration & social service bachelor's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. Important measures of a quality public administration & social service program can vary widely even among the top schools. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
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