If you plan on majoring in public policy, you won't be alone since the degree program is ranked #113 in the country in terms of popularity. 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 4 schools in Illinois to determine which ones were the best for public policy students pursuing a degree. Combined, these schools handed out 495 degrees in public policy to qualified students.
Your choice of public policy school matters, so we have put together these rankings to help you make your decision. We derive our Best Overall Public Policy School rankings by rolling up our degree-level rankings after weighting them by the number of degrees awarded at each school.
In order to find the schools that are the best fit for you, you may want to filter to one of the degree levels below.
Since the program you select can have a significant impact on your future, we've developed a number of rankings, including this Best Public Policy Schools in Illinois 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.
Although we recommend filtering by degree level first, you can view the list below to see which schools give the educational experience for the public policy degree levels they offer.
Any student who is interested in public policy needs to check out University of Chicago. UChicago is a large private not-for-profit university located in the large city of Chicago. A Best Colleges rank of #3 out of 2,152 colleges nationwide means UChicago is a great university overall.
There were roughly 363 public policy students who graduated with this degree at UChicago in the most recent year we have data available. Degree recipients from the public policy degree program at University of Chicago make $12,482 more than the average graduate in this field shortly after graduation.
It is hard to beat Northwestern University if you wish to pursue a degree in public policy. Located in the city of Evanston, Northwestern is a private not-for-profit university with a very large student population. A Best Colleges rank of #5 out of 2,152 schools nationwide means Northwestern is a great university overall.
There were roughly 47 public policy students who graduated with this degree at Northwestern in the most recent year we have data available. Soon after graduation, public policy degree recipients typically earn an average of $48,558 in the first five years of their career.
BS in Business Administration - Public AdministrationProgram Name
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.
It's hard to beat Loyola University Chicago if you want to pursue a degree in public policy. Loyola Chicago is a large private not-for-profit university located in the city of Chicago. This university ranks 4th out of 85 colleges for overall quality in the state of Illinois.
There were approximately 5 public policy students who graduated with this degree at Loyola Chicago in the most recent year we have data available.
It's hard to beat University of Illinois at Chicago if you wish to pursue a degree in public policy. Located in the city of Chicago, UIC is a public university with a fairly large student population. This university ranks 10th out of 85 schools for overall quality in the state of Illinois.
There were about 45 public policy students who graduated with this degree at UIC in the most recent year we have data available. Graduates who receive their degree from the public policy program earn an average of $35,205 in their early career salary.
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 school matters, so we have put together these rankings to help you make your decision. We derive our Best Overall Public Policy School rankings by rolling up our degree-level rankings after weighting them by the number of degrees awarded at each school.
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