Religious Education isn't the most popular bachelor's program in the world, but it's not the least popular either. To be more precise it ranks #183 in popularity out of 363 majors in the country. So, it might take a little more work to find colleges and universities that offer the degree program.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 2 schools in Illinois to determine which ones were the best for religious education students pursuing a bachelor's degree. Combined, these schools handed out 60 bachelor's degrees in religious education to qualified students.
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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
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 religious education students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - The number of religious education 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 religious education 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 religious education related body.
Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for religious education 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 Religious Education Bachelor's Degree Schools in Illinois 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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Wheaton College Illinois is one of the best schools in the country for getting a bachelor's degree in religious education. Located in the suburb of Wheaton, Wheaton College Illinois is a private not-for-profit college with a small student population.
Bachelor's graduates who receive their degree from the religious ed program earn around $31,892 in the first couple years of working.
It's hard to beat Moody Bible Institute if you want to pursue a bachelor's degree in religious education. Located in the city of Chicago, Moody Theological Seminary and Graduate School is a private not-for-profit school with a small student population.
Bachelor's graduates who receive their degree from the religious ed program make about $30,671 for their early career.
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).
