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.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 5 schools in West Virginia to determine which ones were the best for social work students pursuing a bachelor's degree. Combined, these schools handed out 146 bachelor's degrees in social work to qualified students.
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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 schools for social work students working on their bachelor's degree.
When choosing the right school for you, it's important to arm yourself with all the facts you can. To that end, we've created a number of major-specific rankings, including this Best Social Work Bachelor's Degree Schools in West Virginia list to help you make the college decision.
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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West Virginia University is one of the finest schools in the country for getting a bachelor's degree in social work. Located in the city of Morgantown, WVU is a public university with a very large student population.
Bachelor's students who receive their degree from the social work program earn an average of $34,344 for their early career.
It is hard to beat Marshall University if you wish to pursue a bachelor's degree in social work. Located in the city of Huntington, Marshall University is a public university with a large student population.
Bachelor's students who receive their degree from the social work program make an average of $33,344 in the first couple years of their career.
Concord University is a great decision for individuals interested in a bachelor's degree in social work. Located in the rural area of Athens, Concord University is a public university with a small student population.
Bachelor's recipients from the social work program at Concord University get $2,601 more than the average college grad in this field when they enter the workforce.
Every student pursuing a degree in a bachelor's degree in social work has to look into Shepherd University. Shepherd University is a small public university located in the rural area of Shepherdstown.
Students who graduate with their bachelor's from the social work program state that they receive average early career income of $32,965.
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 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.
