2023 Best Ethnic Studies Doctor’s Degree Colleges for Veterans in the Southwest Region

Veterans have lots of options to chooose from today when trying to decide which college to attend. College Factual was founded, in part, to help students make the decision as to what would be the best school for them. Our “Most Veteran Friendly in the Southwest Region for Ethnic Studies for a Doctorate” ranking is part of that endeavor.

In 2020-2021, 9,231 people earned their degree in ethnic studies, making the major the 99th most popular in the United States. In 2019-2020, ethnic studies graduates who were awarded their degree in 2017-2019, earned an average of $30,818 and had an average of $22,901 in loans still to pay off.

Across the Southwest region, there were 419 ethnic studies graduates with average earnings and debt of $33,632 and $24,486 respectively.

For this year’s “Most Veteran Friendly in the Southwest Region for Ethnic Studies for a Doctorate” ranking, we looked at 2 colleges that offer a degree in ethnic studies. Not only do the schools that top this list have excellent ethnic studies programs, but they also offer a lot of support to veterans and active service members.

When determining these rankings, we looked at things such as overall quality of the ethnic studies program at the school, veteran affordability, and veteran satisfaction. Check out our ranking methodology for more information.

More Ways to Rank Ethnic Studies Schools

Since picking the right college can be one of the most important decisions of your life, we’ve developed the “Most Veteran Friendly in the Southwest Region for Ethnic Studies for a Doctorate” ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.

We’ve created a tool called College Combat that lets you create your own customized comparisons based on the factors that matter the most to you. We encourage you to try it out and pit your favorite colleges and universities head to head! If you don’t have time right now, you can bookmark it for later.

Most Veteran Friendly in the Southwest Region for Ethnic Studies for a Doctorate

The following schools top our list of the Best “Most Veteran Friendly in the Southwest Region for Ethnic Studies for a Doctorate”.

Top 2 Best Ethnic Studies Doctor’s Degree Colleges for Veterans in the Southwest Region

1

University of Arizona
Tucson, Arizona

2,131 GI Bill® Students**

#2 in overall quality

YES Student Veterans Organization

You’ll be in good company if you decide to attend University of Arizona. It ranked #1 on our 2023 Most Veteran Friendly in the Southwest Region for Ethnic Studies for a Doctorate list. This large school is located in Tucson, Arizona, and it awarded 8 doctorate’s ethnic studies degrees in 2020-2021.

As a testament to the quality of education offered at University of Arizona, the school also landed the #2 spot in our “Best Ethnic Studies Doctor’s Degree Schools in the Southwest Region” ranking.Of the 45,601 students enrolled at University of Arizona, 2,131 were GI Bill® students, according to our most recent data. Out of that number, 1,478 were Post-9/11 GI Bill® recipients. The average tuition and fees award for the Post-9/11 GI Bill® recipients was $8,880. To help with additional expenses, 31 students qualified for the Yellow Ribbon Program. Students may be able to receive credit for their military training, depending on their background.

Students who start out at the school are likely to stick around. The freshman retention rate is 85%.

Full University of Arizona Veteran Student Life Report

2

The University of Texas at Austin
Austin, Texas

7 GI Bill® Students**

#1 in overall quality

YES Student Veterans Organization

You’ll join some of the best and brightest minds around if you attend The University of Texas at Austin. The school came in at #2 for the Most Veteran Friendly in the Southwest Region for Ethnic Studies for a Doctorate. Austin, Texas is the setting for this large institution of higher learning. The public school handed out doctorate’s ethnic studies degrees to 5 students in 2020-2021.

UT Austin also made our “Best Ethnic Studies Doctor’s Degree Schools in the Southwest Region” list, coming in at #1.According to our most recent data, The University of Texas at Austin supports 50,476 students, and 7 of those are GI Bill® students, of which 1 are Post-9/11 GI Bill® recipients. The average tuition and fees award for the Post-9/11 GI Bill® recipients was $2,893. To help with additional expenses, 0 students qualified for the Yellow Ribbon Program. Students may be able to receive credit for their military training, depending on their background.

The school has an excellent freshman retention rate of 97%, which means students like the school well enough to return for a second year. The school has an impressive undergrad student loan default rate. It’s only [DEFAULT_RATE_STRING]%, which is much lower than the national rate of 10.1%.

Full The University of Texas at Austin Veteran Student Life Report

• Best Ethnic Studies Doctor’s Degree Colleges for Veterans

Notes and References

References

• 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 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).
• Veteran-specific data can be found at the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs.
• Information about the national average student loan default rate is from the U.S. Department of Education and refers to data about the 2016 borrower cohort tracking period for which the cohort default rate (CDR) was 10.1%.

Read more about our data sources and methodologies

Footnotes

• *Avg Salary and Avg 4-Year Grad Rate are for the top schools only.
• **GI Bill® student total includes all chapters of the GI Bill® program (e.g., Post-9/11, Montgomery GI Bill, Reserve Education Assistance Program, and Veteran Readiness and Employment)
• Some schools otherwise deserving of recognition may have been removed from this ranking in the event that new data identified post-publication warranted it, or at the request of the school.

Credits

• Credit for the banner image above goes to G. MГјtzel.