2022 Best Linguistics Schools
For its 2022 ranking, College Factual looked at 115 schools in the United States to determine which ones were the best for linguistics students pursuing a degree. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 3,129 degrees in linguistics during the 2019-2020 academic year.
What's on this page: * Degree-Level Rankings
Choosing a Great Linguistics School
Your choice of linguistics school matters, so we have put together these rankings to help you make your decision. We derive our Best Overall Linguistics 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.
Pick Your Linguistics Degree Level
The linguistics school you choose to invest your time and money in matters. To help you make the decision that is right for you, we've developed a number of major-specific rankings, including this list of the Best Linguistics Schools. 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.
If you want to learn more about how we derive our rankings, see College Factual's Methodology.
Best Schools for Linguistics in the United States
The schools below may not offer all types of linguistics degrees so you may want to filter by degree level first. However, they are great for the degree levels they do offer. Only those schools that rank in the top 15% of all the schools we analyze get awarded with a place on this list.
17 Top Schools in Linguistics
Northwestern University is a great choice for students interested in a degree in linguistics. Located in the city of Evanston, Northwestern is a private not-for-profit university with a very large student population. A Best Schools rank of #14 out of 2,576 colleges nationwide means Northwestern is a great university overall.
There were about 9 linguistics students who graduated with this degree at Northwestern in the most recent data year.
More information about a degree in linguistics from Northwestern University
It is hard to beat Georgetown University if you wish to pursue a degree in linguistics. Georgetown is a large private not-for-profit university located in the city of Washington. A Best Schools rank of #18 out of 2,576 schools nationwide means Georgetown is a great university overall.
There were roughly 55 linguistics students who graduated with this degree at Georgetown in the most recent data year.
More information about a degree in linguistics from Georgetown University
Duke University is one of the finest schools in the country for getting a degree in linguistics. Duke is a fairly large private not-for-profit university located in the large city of Durham. A Best Schools rank of #9 out of 2,576 schools nationwide means Duke is a great university overall.
There were approximately 9 linguistics students who graduated with this degree at Duke in the most recent year we have data available.
More information about a degree in linguistics from Duke University
Any student who is interested in linguistics needs to check out Columbia University in the City of New York. Columbia is a very large private not-for-profit university located in the city of New York. A Best Schools rank of #22 out of 2,576 schools nationwide means Columbia is a great university overall.
There were roughly 5 linguistics students who graduated with this degree at Columbia in the most recent data year.
More information about a degree in linguistics from Columbia University in the City of New York
UCLA is a fairly large public university located in the city of Los Angeles. This university ranks 11th out of 203 schools for overall quality in the state of California.
There were about 55 linguistics students who graduated with this degree at UCLA in the most recent data year.
More information about a degree in linguistics from University of California - Los Angeles
Brown is a moderately-sized private not-for-profit university located in the city of Providence. A Best Schools rank of #24 out of 2,576 schools nationwide means Brown is a great university overall.
There were roughly 3 linguistics students who graduated with this degree at Brown in the most recent data year.
More information about a degree in linguistics from Brown University
Bucknell is a small private not-for-profit university located in the distant town of Lewisburg. This university ranks 5th out of 134 schools for overall quality in the state of Pennsylvania.
There were approximately 5 linguistics students who graduated with this degree at Bucknell in the most recent data year.
More information about a degree in linguistics from Bucknell University
Located in the city of Chestnut Hill, Boston College is a private not-for-profit college with a large student population. This college ranks 8th out of 72 schools for overall quality in the state of Massachusetts.
There were roughly 6 linguistics students who graduated with this degree at Boston College in the most recent year we have data available.
More information about a degree in linguistics from Boston College
Located in the city of Los Angeles, USC is a private not-for-profit university with a fairly large student population. A Best Schools rank of #33 out of 2,576 schools nationwide means USC is a great university overall.
There were roughly 14 linguistics students who graduated with this degree at USC in the most recent data year.
More information about a degree in linguistics from University of Southern California
Located in the large city of Boston, Boston U is a private not-for-profit university with a very large student population. This university ranks 12th out of 72 schools for overall quality in the state of Massachusetts.
There were about 20 linguistics students who graduated with this degree at Boston U in the most recent data year.
More information about a degree in linguistics from Boston University
UChicago is a fairly large private not-for-profit university located in the large city of Chicago. A Best Schools rank of #7 out of 2,576 schools nationwide means UChicago is a great university overall.
There were approximately 29 linguistics students who graduated with this degree at UChicago in the most recent data year.
More information about a degree in linguistics from University of Chicago
NYU is a very large private not-for-profit university located in the city of New York. This university ranks 7th out of 160 schools for overall quality in the state of New York.
There were approximately 8 linguistics students who graduated with this degree at NYU in the most recent data year.
More information about a degree in linguistics from New York University
Brandeis is a medium-sized private not-for-profit university located in the city of Waltham. This university ranks 15th out of 72 colleges for overall quality in the state of Massachusetts.
There were approximately 18 linguistics students who graduated with this degree at Brandeis in the most recent year we have data available.
More information about a degree in linguistics from Brandeis University
Located in the suburb of Charlottesville, University of Virginia is a public university with a fairly large student population. A Best Schools rank of #38 out of 2,576 schools nationwide means University of Virginia is a great university overall.
There were roughly 4 linguistics students who graduated with this degree at University of Virginia in the most recent year we have data available.
More information about a degree in linguistics from University of Virginia - Main Campus
Located in the midsize city of Berkeley, UC Berkeley is a public university with a very large student population. A Best Schools rank of #26 out of 2,576 schools nationwide means UC Berkeley is a great university overall.
There were about 58 linguistics students who graduated with this degree at UC Berkeley in the most recent year we have data available.
More information about a degree in linguistics from University of California - Berkeley
Barnard is a small private not-for-profit college located in the city of New York. A Best Schools rank of #31 out of 2,576 schools nationwide means Barnard is a great college overall.
There were approximately 1 linguistics students who graduated with this degree at Barnard in the most recent year we have data available.
More information about a degree in linguistics from Barnard College
Located in the small city of Ithaca, Cornell is a private not-for-profit university with a fairly large student population. A Best Schools rank of #16 out of 2,576 colleges nationwide means Cornell is a great university overall.
There were roughly 21 linguistics students who graduated with this degree at Cornell in the most recent year we have data available.
More information about a degree in linguistics from Cornell UniversityHonorable Mentions
Here are some additional great schools for Linguistics students that almost earned our Best Linguistics Schools award.
Rank | College | Location |
---|---|---|
18 | The University of Texas at Austin | Austin, TX |
19 | University of Pennsylvania | Philadelphia, PA |
20 | University of Florida | Gainesville, FL |
21 | Teachers College at Columbia University | New York, NY |
22 | University of Missouri - Columbia | Columbia, MO |
23 | University of Maryland - College Park | College Park, MD |
24 | University of California - Santa Barbara | Santa Barbara, CA |
25 | University of Rochester | Rochester, NY |
Linguistics by Region
View the Best Linguistics Schools for a specific region near you.
Region |
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Southeast |
New England |
Rocky Mountains |
Plains States |
Middle Atlantic |
Far Western US |
Southwest |
Great Lakes |
Linguistics Related Rankings by Major
One of 5 majors within the Linguistics & Comparative Literature area of study, Linguistics has other similar majors worth exploring.
Most Popular Majors Related to Linguistics
Related Major | Annual Graduates |
---|---|
Modern Languages | 3,075 |
Comparative Literature | 1,093 |
Language Translation | 874 |
Other Linguistic, Comparative, & Related Language Studies & Services | 351 |
Applied Linguistics | 163 |
View All Linguistics Related Majors >
Notes and References
- 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).
- Credit for the banner image above goes to Pandit Rahul Sanskrutayan, Banshidhar Mohanty.
More about our data sources and methodologies.
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