If you pursue a bachelor's degree in social work, you won't be alone. The field of study is the #24 most popular program in the country. So, there are lots of possibilities to explore when you're trying to determine where you want to get your degree.
College Factual looked at 14 colleges and universities when compiling its 2025 Best Social Work Bachelor's Degree Schools in Tennessee ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 510 bachelor's degrees in social work during the 2022-2023 academic year.
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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. 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 good education, not just how well they do in a particular major. To account for this we consider a college's overall Best Colleges ranking which itself looks at a combination 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 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.
The social work 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 Social Work Bachelor's Degree Schools in Tennessee.
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.
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Any student who is interested in a bachelor's degree in social work has to take a look at The University of Tennessee - Knoxville. UT Knoxville is a very large public university located in the midsize city of Knoxville.
Those social work students who get their bachelor's degree from The University of Tennessee - Knoxville receive $4,032 more than the standard social work student.
It's difficult to beat University of Memphis if you wish to pursue a bachelor's degree in social work. Located in the city of Memphis, UofM is a public university with a very large student population.
Social Work bachelor's degree recipients from University of Memphis earn a boost of around $2,522 above the average income of social work graduates.
Southern Adventist University is one of the finest schools in the United States for getting a bachelor's degree in social work. Located in the suburb of Collegedale, Southern Adventist is a private not-for-profit university with a small student population.More information about a bachelor’s in social work from Southern Adventist University
Any student pursuing a degree in a bachelor's degree in social work has to take a look at East Tennessee State University. ETSU is a fairly large public university located in the city of Johnson City.
Bachelor's students who receive their degree from the social work program make around $32,514 in the first couple years of their career.
Located in the city of Jackson, Union is a private not-for-profit university with a small student population.
Bachelor's recipients from the social work program at Union University earn $4,358 above the typical graduate in this field when they enter the workforce.
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. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
