If you plan on getting your bachelor's degree in public policy, you won't be alone since the degree program is ranked #121 in the country in terms of popularity. 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 Policy Bachelor's Degree Schools in Illinois ranking. Combined, these schools handed out 163 bachelor's degrees in public policy to qualified students.
Choosing a Great Public Policy School for Your Bachelor's Degree
Your choice of public policy for getting your bachelor's degree school matters. This section explores some of the factors we include in our ranking and how much they vary depending on the school you select. 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 good education, not just how well they do in a particular major. To take this into account we include a college's overall Best Colleges ranking which itself looks at a combination 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 much a school focuses on public policy students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - The number of public policy 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 easy is it for public policy 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 public policy related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for public policy 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 Public Policy Bachelor's Degree Schools in Illinois 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.
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Featured Public Policy Programs
Learn about start dates, transferring credits, availability of financial aid, and more by contacting the universities below.
Prepare yourself to make the decisions that best serve a community, its constituents and its economic growth with this specialized business degree from Southern New Hampshire University.
University of Chicago is one of the finest schools in the United States for getting a bachelor's degree in public policy. UChicago is a large private not-for-profit university located in the large city of Chicago.
Bachelor's recipients from the public policy program at University of Chicago make $12,117 above the standard college grad in this field when they enter the workforce.
It's difficult to beat Northwestern University if you want to pursue a bachelor's degree in public policy. Located in the small city of Evanston, Northwestern is a private not-for-profit university with a very large student population.
After graduation, public policy bachelor's recipients typically make an average of $48,558 in their early careers.
It is hard to beat University of Illinois at Chicago if you wish to pursue a bachelor's degree in public policy. Located in the city of Chicago, UIC is a public university with a fairly large student population.
After graduating, public policy bachelor's recipients usually make an average of $35,205 in the first five years of their career.
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 policy for getting your bachelor's degree school matters. This section explores some of the factors we include in our ranking and how much they vary depending on the school you select. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
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