2025 Best Ecology Schools in the Plains States Region

A degree in ecology is more popular than many other degrees. In fact, it ranks #416 out of 1506 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 2 schools in the Plains States Region to determine which ones were the best for ecology students pursuing a degree. Combined, these schools handed out 166 degrees in ecology to qualified students.

Jump to one of the following sections: * Degree-Level Rankings

• Best Overall Ecology Schools List

Ecology Rankings by Degree Level

Since the program you select can have a significant impact on your future, we've developed a number of rankings, including this Best Ecology Schools in the Plains States Region list, to help you choose the best school for you. If you'd like to restrict your choices to just one part of the country, you can filter this list by location.

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.

If you want to learn more about how we derive our rankings, see College Factual's Methodology.

Best Schools for Ecology in the Plains States Region

If you aren't interested in a particular degree level and want to know which schools are the overall best at delivering an education for the ecology degrees they offer, see the list below.

Top Plains States Region Schools in Ecology

1

Iowa State University
Ames, IA

Bachelor's Degree Highest Degree Type

118 Ecology Degrees Awarded

27.1% Growth in Graduates

Iowa State University is a good choice for students interested in a degree in ecology. Located in the city of Ames, Iowa State is a public university with a fairly large student population.More information about a degree in ecology from Iowa State University

2

University of Minnesota - Twin Cities
Minneapolis, MN

Doctor's Degree Highest Degree Type

33 Ecology Degrees Awarded

Every student who is interested in ecology has to look into University of Minnesota - Twin Cities. Located in the large city of Minneapolis, UMN Twin Cities is a public university with a very large student population.More information about a degree in ecology from University of Minnesota - Twin Cities

Best Ecology Colleges by State

Explore the best ecology schools for a specific state in the Plains States Region .

State	Colleges	Degrees Awarded
Minnesota	742	52
Missouri	693	9
Iowa	648	93
South Dakota	381	2

View All Rankings >

Rankings in Majors Related to Ecology

One of 12 majors within the Ecology, Evolution & Systematics Biology area of study, Ecology has other similar majors worth exploring.

Majors Similar to Ecology

Related Major	Annual Graduates
Epidemiology	128
Evolutionary Biology	77
Environmental Biology	46
Aquatic Biology/Limnology	25
Marine Biology	24
Conservation Biology	6
Other Ecology, Evolution & Systematics Biology	3

View All Ecology Related Majors >

Notes and References

• 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).
• Credit for the banner image above goes to Ernst Haeckel.

More about our data sources and methodologies.