Ranked #24 in popularity, social work is one of the most sought-after bachelor's degree programs in the nation. This means there are lots of options to choose from when you decide to get your degree.
College Factual looked at 9 colleges and universities when compiling its 2025 Best Social Work Bachelor's Degree Schools in Virginia ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 663 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
The social work bachelor's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. This section explores some of the factors we include in our ranking and how much they vary depending on the school you select. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.
A Great Overall School
A school that excels in educating for a particular major and degree level must be a great school overall as well. To make it into this list a school must rank well in our overall Best Colleges ranking. This ranking considered factors such as graduation rates, overall graduate earnings and other educational resources to identify great colleges and universities.
Early-Career Earnings
One measure we use to determine the quality of a school is to look at the average salary of bachelor's graduates during the early years of their career. That is, everyone wants their bachelor's degree to be worth something, and salaries are one measure of determining that.
Other Factors We Consider
In addition to the above, you should consider some of the following factors:
Major Focus - How many resources a school devotes to social work students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - How many other social work students want to attend this school to pursue a bachelor's degree.
Educational Resources - The amount of money and other resources allocated to students while they are pursuing their degree. These resources include such things as number of students per instructor and education expenditures per student.
Student Debt - How much debt social work students go into to obtain their bachelor's degree and how well they are able to pay back that debt.
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 Virginia.
In addition to our rankings, you can take two colleges and compare them based on the criteria that matters most to you in our unique tool, College Combat.
Test it out when you get a chance! You may also want to bookmark the link and share it with others who are trying to make the college decision.
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Every student pursuing a degree in a bachelor's degree in social work needs to look into Virginia Commonwealth University. Located in the city of Richmond, VCU is a public university with a very large student population.
Soon after graduating, social work bachelor's recipients typically make around $34,088 at the beginning of their careers.
George Mason University is a wonderful choice for individuals interested in a bachelor's degree in social work. GMU is a fairly large public university located in the suburb of Fairfax.
Social Work bachelor's degree recipients from George Mason University receive an earnings boost of around $2,477 over the typical earnings of social work graduates.
Liberty University is one of the finest schools in the country for getting a bachelor's degree in social work. Located in the small city of Lynchburg, Liberty University is a private not-for-profit university with a fairly large student population.
Bachelor's recipients from the social work major at Liberty University get $2,746 above the typical college graduate with the same degree when they enter the workforce.
Every student who is interested in a bachelor's degree in social work needs to check out James Madison University. JMU is a very large public university located in the small city of Harrisonburg.
Bachelor's students who receive their degree from the social work program make about $31,687 in their early career salary.
Radford is a medium-sized public university located in the fringe town of Radford.
Social Work bachelor's degree recipients from Radford University get an earnings boost of about $2,190 above the typical earnings of social work graduates.
Located in the town of Farmville, Longwood is a public university with a small student population.
Social Work bachelor's degree recipients from Longwood University get an earnings boost of about $5,078 above the typical earnings of social work majors.
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).