a bachelor's degree in general agriculture is more popular than many other degrees. In fact, it ranks #130 out of 363 on popularity of all such degrees in the nation. As a result, there are many college that offer the degree, making your choice of school a hard one.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 3 schools in the Great Lakes Region to determine which ones were the best for general agriculture students pursuing a bachelor's degree. Combined, these schools handed out 217 bachelor's degrees in general agriculture to qualified students.
Choosing a Great General Agriculture School for Your Bachelor's Degree
The agriculture 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 general agriculture students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - The number of general agriculture students who choose to seek a bachelor's degree at the school.
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 easy is it for general agriculture 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 general agriculture related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for general agriculture students working on their bachelor's degree.
The agriculture 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 General Agriculture Bachelor's Degree Schools in the Great Lakes Region.
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.
Best Schools for Bachelor’s Students to Study General Agriculture in the Great Lakes Region
Below you'll see a list of the best colleges and universities for pursuing a bachelor's degree in general agriculture.
Top Great Lakes Region Schools for a Bachelor's in Agriculture
Illinois State University is one of the finest schools in the United States for getting a bachelor's degree in general agriculture. Located in the medium-sized suburb of Normal, Illinois State is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Bachelor's recipients from the general agriculture degree program at Illinois State University get $2,127 above the typical graduate in this field when they enter the workforce.
It's difficult to beat Western Illinois University if you wish to pursue a bachelor's degree in general agriculture. WIU is a moderately-sized public university located in the town of Macomb.
Bachelor's recipients from the general agriculture degree program at Western Illinois University get $3,341 more than the typical graduate in this field shortly after graduation.
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).
The agriculture 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.
