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.
College Factual reviewed 4 schools in the Great Lakes Region to determine which ones were the best for bachelor's degree seekers in the field of religious education. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 137 bachelor's degrees in religious education during the 2022-2023 academic year.
DEBUG: offers_url is valid, proceeding to fetch data
DEBUG: No offers_data.offers found, showing generic ESYOH widget
Choosing a Great Religious Education School for Your Bachelor's Degree
Your choice of religious education for getting your bachelor's degree school matters. Important measures of a quality religious ed program can vary widely even among the top schools. 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 religious education students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - How many other religious education 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 religious education 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 religious education related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools 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 the Great Lakes Region 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.
DEBUG: Raw major_slug = "theology-and-religious-vocations//religious-education"
It is difficult to beat Wheaton College Illinois if you wish to pursue a bachelor's degree in religious education. Wheaton College Illinois is a small private not-for-profit college located in the suburb of Wheaton.
Bachelor's students who receive their degree from the religious ed program make around $31,892 for their early career.
It's difficult to beat Franciscan University of Steubenville if you want to pursue a bachelor's degree in religious education. Franciscan U is a small private not-for-profit university located in the city of Steubenville.
Bachelor's recipients from the religious education program at Franciscan University of Steubenville make $3,088 above the standard college graduate in this field shortly after graduation.
Every student pursuing a degree in a bachelor's degree in religious education has to check out Moody Bible Institute. Moody Theological Seminary and Graduate School is a small private not-for-profit school located in the city of Chicago.
Bachelor's graduates who receive their degree from the religious ed program earn about $30,671 for their early career.
Grace Christian University is a great option for students interested in a bachelor's degree in religious education. Located in the city of Wyoming, Grace is a private not-for-profit university with a fairly small student population.
Soon after graduation, religious ed bachelor's recipients usually make around $33,308 in the first five years of their 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).