a bachelor's degree in anthropology is more popular than many other degrees. In fact, it ranks #59 out of 363 on popularity of all such degrees in the nation. So, you have a fair amount of options to choose from when looking for a school.
College Factual reviewed 255 schools in the United States to determine which ones were the best for bachelor's degree seekers in the field of anthropology. Combined, these schools handed out 8,349 bachelor's degrees in anthropology to qualified students.
Choosing a Great Anthropology School for Your Bachelor's Degree
Your choice of anthropology for getting your bachelor's degree school matters. Important measures of a quality anthropology program can vary widely even among the top schools. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
Overall Quality Is a Must
The overall quality of a bachelor's degree school is important to ensure a quality education, not just how well they do in a particular major. To account for this we consider a college's overall Best Colleges ranking which itself looks at a collection of various factors like degree completion, educational resources, student body caliber and post-graduation earnings for the school as a whole.
Average Early-Career Salaries
Average early-career salary of those graduating with their bachelor's degree is one indicator we use in our analysis to find the schools that offer the highest-quality education. After all, your bachelor's degree won't mean much if it doesn't help you find a job that will help you earn a living.
Other Factors We Consider
The metrics below are just some of the other metrics that we use to determine our rankings.
Major Focus - How many resources a school devotes to anthropology students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - The number of anthropology 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 much debt anthropology 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 anthropology related body.
Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for anthropology students working on their bachelor's degree.
Since picking the right college can be one of the most important decisions of your life, we've developed the Best Anthropology Bachelor's Degree Schools ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.
To further help you make the college decision, we've developed a unique tool called College Combat that allows you to compare schools based on the factors that matter the most to you.
Go ahead and give it a try, or bookmark the link so you can check it out later.
Best Schools for Bachelor’s Students to Study Anthropology in the United States
Below you'll see a list of the best colleges and universities for pursuing a bachelor's degree in anthropology. Only those schools that rank in the top 20% of all the schools we analyze get awarded with a place on this list.
Any student who is interested in a bachelor's degree in anthropology has to check out University of California - Los Angeles. UCLA is a fairly large public university located in the large city of Los Angeles.
Bachelor's recipients from the anthropology program at University of California - Los Angeles make $4,133 above the average graduate in this field shortly after graduation.
It is difficult to beat Washington University in St Louis if you want to pursue a bachelor's degree in anthropology. WUSTL is a large private not-for-profit university located in the suburb of Saint Louis.
Anthropology bachelor's degree recipients from Washington University in St Louis get an earnings boost of about $6,322 above the typical earnings of anthropology graduates.
Located in the small city of Chapel Hill, UNC Chapel Hill is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Those anthropology students who get their bachelor's degree from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill earn $8,044 more than the standard anthropology grad.
Duke is a large private not-for-profit university located in the large city of Durham.
Bachelor's recipients from the anthropology degree program at Duke University make $15,757 above the standard graduate with the same degree when they enter the workforce.
Located in the small city of Evanston, Northwestern is a private not-for-profit university with a fairly large student population.
Anthropology bachelor's degree recipients from Northwestern University receive an earnings boost of about $5,041 above the average income of anthropology graduates.
UCSB is a very large public university located in the suburb of Santa Barbara.
Anthropology bachelor's degree recipients from University of California - Santa Barbara get an earnings boost of approximately $3,253 over the average earnings of anthropology graduates.
UW Seattle is a very large public university located in the city of Seattle.
Those anthropology students who get their bachelor's degree from University of Washington - Seattle Campus receive $4,611 more than the standard anthropology student.
Located in the town of Hanover, Dartmouth is a private not-for-profit college with a moderately-sized student population.
Bachelor's recipients from the anthropology degree program at Dartmouth College get $11,904 more than the standard graduate in this field shortly after graduation.
This list shows the rest of the colleges awarded a Best Anthropology Bachelor's Degree Schools badge.
Showing in this list means the school was ranked in the top 20% of the 255 different United States anthropology schools we analyzed.
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).