Public Administration is above average in terms of popularity with it being the #103 most popular bachelor's degree program in the country. So, you have a fair amount of options to choose from when looking for a school.
In 2025, College Factual analyzed 3 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Public Administration Bachelor's Degree Schools in Virginia ranking. Combined, these schools handed out 113 bachelor's degrees in public administration to qualified students.
Choosing a Great Public Administration School for Your Bachelor's Degree
Your choice of public administration for getting your bachelor's degree school matters. Important measures of a quality public admin 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
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.
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
In addition to the above, you should consider some of the following factors:
Major Focus - How many resources a school devotes to public administration students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - The number of public administration 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 much debt public administration 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 public administration related body.
Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for public administration 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 Public Administration Bachelor's Degree Schools in Virginia list to help you make the college 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 Public Administration in Virginia
The following list ranks the best colleges and universities for pursuing a bachelor's degree in public administration.
Top Virginia Schools for a Bachelor's in Public Admin
George Mason University is one of the best schools in the country for getting a bachelor's degree in public administration. GMU is a fairly large public university located in the suburb of Fairfax.
Bachelor's recipients from the public administration major at George Mason University make $4,139 more than the standard graduate with the same degree when they enter the workforce.
James Madison University is a good decision for students pursuing a bachelor's degree in public administration. JMU is a very large public university located in the small city of Harrisonburg.
Students who graduate with their bachelor's from the public admin program state that they receive average early career wages of $48,396.
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).
Your choice of public administration for getting your bachelor's degree school matters. Important measures of a quality public admin program can vary widely even among the top schools. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
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