Social Work is of the hottest bachelor's degree programs in the United States, coming in as the #24 most popular major in the country. This makes choosing the right school a hard decision.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 54 schools in the Middle Atlantic Region to determine which ones were the best for social work students pursuing a bachelor's degree. Combined, these schools handed out 2,484 bachelor's degrees in social work to qualified students.
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Choosing a Great Social Work School for Your Bachelor's Degree
Your choice of social work for getting your bachelor's degree school matters. Important measures of a quality social work 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 account for this 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 social work students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - The number of social work 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 social work 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 social work related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for social work students working on their bachelor's degree.
Since picking the right college can be one of the most important decisions of your life, we've developed the Best Social Work Bachelor's Degree Schools in the Middle Atlantic Region ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.
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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ADBLOCK #171
Best Schools for Bachelor’s Students to Study Social Work in the Middle Atlantic Region
Below you'll see a list of the best colleges and universities for pursuing a bachelor's degree in social work. Only those schools that rank in the top 20% of all the schools we analyze get awarded with a place on this list.
10 Top Middle Atlantic Region Schools for a Bachelor's in Social Work
Rutgers University - New Brunswick is one of the best schools in the United States for getting a bachelor's degree in social work. Located in the small city of New Brunswick, Rutgers New Brunswick is a public university with a very large student population.
Those social work students who get their bachelor's degree from Rutgers University - New Brunswick earn $3,131 more than the typical social work grad.
Any student who is interested in a bachelor's degree in social work has to take a look at New York University. NYU is a fairly large private not-for-profit university located in the large city of New York.
Soon after graduation, social work bachelor's recipients generally make around $26,837 in their early careers.
It is hard to beat Rutgers University - Newark if you wish to pursue a bachelor's degree in social work. Rutgers Newark is a large public university located in the large city of Newark.
Social Work bachelor's degree recipients from Rutgers University - Newark earn a boost of approximately $3,131 over the typical earnings of social work majors.
It is hard to beat Salisbury University if you wish to pursue a bachelor's degree in social work. Salisbury is a medium-sized public university located in the suburb of Salisbury.
Students who graduate with their bachelor's from the social work program state that they receive average early career earnings of $34,917.
Temple is a fairly large public university located in the large city of Philadelphia.
Bachelor's recipients from the social work major at Temple University make $2,250 above the standard graduate in this field when they enter the workforce.
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Honorable Mentions
These are some additional schools worth mentioning that are also great but just didn't quite make the cut to earn our top Best Social Work Bachelor's Degree Schools in the Middle Atlantic Region award.
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).
Your choice of social work for getting your bachelor's degree school matters. Important measures of a quality social work program can vary widely even among the top schools. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
