2022 Best Value Bachelor’s Degree Colleges for Area Studies (Income $30-$48k) in Maine

When it comes to choosing a college, students have a lot of options - but not all of them are good. College Factual has developed its “Best Value Area Studies Schools for a Bachelor’s in Maine For Those Making $30-$48k” ranking as one item you can use to help make this decision.

In 2019-2020, 6,820 people earned their degree in area studies, making the major the 106th most popular in the United States. In 2017-2018, area studies graduates who were awarded their degree in 2015-2017, earned an average of $33,734 and had an average of $23,024 in loans still to pay off.

Across Maine, there were 97 area studies graduates with average earnings and debt of $0 and $13,289 respectively. At the bachelor’s degree level specifically, there were 96 area studies graduates with average earnings and debt of $40,256 and $26,111 respectively.

The schools that top this list are recognized because they have great area studies programs and cost less that schools of similar quality.

To come up with these rankings, we looked at factors such as the cost to attend the school after aid is awarded and overall quality of the area studies program at the school. For more information, check out our ranking methodology.

More Ways to Rank Area Studies Schools

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 Value Area Studies Schools for a Bachelor’s in Maine For Those Making $30-$48k” list to help you make the college decision.

In addition to College Factual’s rankings, you may want to take a look at College Combat, our unique tool that lets you pit your favorite schools head-to-head and compare how they rate on factors that most interest you. When you have some time, check it out - you may want to bookmark the link so you don’t forget it.

Best Value Area Studies Schools for a Bachelor’s in Maine For Those Making $30-$48k

The following schools top our list of the Best Best Value Area Studies Schools for a Bachelor’s in Maine For Those Making $30-$48k.

Top 1 Best Value Bachelor’s Degree Colleges for Area Studies (Income $30-$48k) in Maine

#1

Bowdoin College

Brunswick, Maine

#1 in overall quality

$12,603 Average Net Price

$39,729 Average Early-Career Earnings

You’ll be in good company if you decide to attend Bowdoin College. It ranked #1 on our 2022 Best Value Area Studies Schools for a Bachelor’s in Maine For Those Making $30-$48k list. Bowdoin College is a small private not-for-profit school situated in Brunswick, Maine. It awarded 58 bachelors’s area studies degrees in 2019-2020.

Bowdoin did well in our major quality rankings, too. It placed #1 on our “Best Area Studies Bachelor’s Degree Schools in Maine” list. It costs about $12,603 for Maine Bachelor’s Degree Area Studies students whose families make $30-$48k per year to attend Bowdoin.

The impressive student-to-faculty ratio of 8 to 1 means that students may have more opportunities to work more closely with their professors than they would at other schools. Students who start out at the school are likely to stick around. The freshman retention rate is 86%. The student loan default rate at the school is 1.4%, which is quite low when compared to the national default rate of 10.1%.

Read full report on Area Studies at Bowdoin

• Best Value Bachelor’s Degree Colleges for Area Studies (Income $30-$48k) in the New England Region
• Best Value Bachelor’s Degree Colleges for Area Studies (Income $30-$48k)

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).
• 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

• *Average salary, average net price, and average tuition and fees are for the top schools only.
• 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 Karl Udo Gerth.

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