If you plan on getting your bachelor's degree in human development & family studies, you won't be alone since the degree program is ranked #39 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 128 schools in the United States to determine which ones were the best for human development & family studies students pursuing a bachelor's degree. Combined, these schools handed out 10,755 bachelor's degrees in human development & family studies to qualified students.
Choosing a Great Human Development & Family Studies School for Your Bachelor's Degree
The human development bachelor's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. This section explores some of the factors we include in our ranking and how much they vary depending on the school you select. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.
A Great Overall School
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 collection of different factors like degree completion, educational resources, student body caliber and post-graduation earnings for the school as a whole.
Early-Career Earnings
One measure we use to determine the quality of a school is to look at the average salary of bachelor's graduates during the early years of their career. That is, everyone wants their bachelor's degree to be worth something, and salaries are one measure of determining that.
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 human development & family studies students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - The number of human development & family studies 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 human development & family studies 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 human development & family studies related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for human development & family studies students working on their bachelor's degree.
More Ways to Rank Human Development & Family Studies Schools
Since the program you select can have a significant impact on your future, we've developed a number of rankings, including this Best Human Development & Family Studies Bachelor's Degree Schools list, to help you choose the best school for you.
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.
Best Schools for Bachelor’s Students to Study Human Development & Family Studies in the United States
Below you'll see a list of the best colleges and universities for pursuing a bachelor's degree in human development & family studies. Only those schools that rank in the top 20% of all the schools we analyze get awarded with a place on this list.
25 Top Schools for a Bachelor's in Human Development
It's hard to beat University of Wisconsin - Madison if you want to pursue a bachelor's degree in human development & family studies. UW - Madison is a fairly large public university located in the city of Madison.
Bachelor's graduates who receive their degree from the human development program make around $34,149 in the first couple years of their career.
It's hard to beat Cornell University if you wish to pursue a bachelor's degree in human development & family studies. Located in the city of Ithaca, Cornell is a private not-for-profit university with a very large student population.
Bachelor's recipients from the human development & family studies major at Cornell University get $4,868 more than the standard college graduate with the same degree shortly after graduation.
University of Connecticut is a good decision for students pursuing a bachelor's degree in human development & family studies. UCONN is a fairly large public university located in the town of Storrs.
Bachelor's students who receive their degree from the human development program make around $31,642 in the first couple years of working.
Any student pursuing a degree in a bachelor's degree in human development & family studies needs to look into Virginia Tech. Virginia Tech is a fairly large public school located in the city of Blacksburg.
Students who graduate with their bachelor's from the human development program report average early career income of $33,654.
Located in the large city of Lubbock, Texas Tech is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Bachelor's recipients from the human development & family studies major at Texas Tech University make $5,563 more than the typical college grad with the same degree when they enter the workforce.
Iowa State is a fairly large public university located in the small city of Ames.
Human Development & Family Studies bachelor's degree recipients from Iowa State University get an earnings boost of approximately $2,831 above the typical earnings of human development & family studies graduates.
University of Arizona is a fairly large public university located in the city of Tucson.
Bachelor's recipients from the human development & family studies degree program at University of Arizona make $2,912 more than the standard graduate in this field when they enter the workforce.
Wazzu is a very large public university located in the distant town of Pullman.
Those human development & family studies students who get their bachelor's degree from Washington State University make $6,347 more than the average human development grad.
UF is a very large public university located in the city of Gainesville.
Bachelor's recipients from the human development & family studies program at University of Florida earn $2,226 above the standard college grad with the same degree shortly after graduation.
Located in the medium-sized city of Fargo, North Dakota State University is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Those human development & family studies students who get their bachelor's degree from North Dakota State University - Main Campus receive $8,184 more than the typical human development grad.
Located in the suburb of College Park, UMCP is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Those human development & family studies students who get their bachelor's degree from University of Maryland - College Park make $7,624 more than the standard human development graduate.
Located in the large suburb of Medford, Tufts is a private not-for-profit university with a large student population.
Bachelor's recipients from the human development & family studies major at Tufts University make $10,812 above the standard college graduate with the same degree shortly after graduation.
Located in the distant town of Stillwater, OSU is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Bachelor's recipients from the human development & family studies program at Oklahoma State University - Main Campus make $7,710 above the typical graduate with the same degree shortly after graduation.
Rest of the Top Best Human Development & Family Studies Bachelor's Degree Schools
Honorable Mentions
These are some additional schools worth mentioning that are also great but just didn't quite make the cut to earn our top Best Human Development & Family Studies Bachelor's Degree Schools award.
Human Development & Family Studies Related Rankings by Major
One of 8 majors within the Family, Consumer & Human Sciences area of study, Human Development & Family Studies has other similar majors worth exploring.
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).