If you plan on majoring in bioethics/medical ethics, you won't be alone since the degree program is ranked #133 in the country in terms of popularity. This means you won't have too much trouble finding schools that offer the degree.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 67 schools in the United States to determine which ones were the best for bioethics/medical ethics students pursuing a degree. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 4,980 degrees in bioethics/medical ethics annually.
Your choice of bioethics/medical ethics school matters, so we have put together these rankings to help you make your decision. We derive our Best Overall Bioethics/Medical Ethics School rankings by rolling up our degree-level rankings after weighting them by the number of degrees awarded at each school.
You may want to choose one of the degree levels below to find the schools of most interest to you.
The medical ethics 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 Bioethics/Medical Ethics Schools.
You can also filter this list by location to find schools closer to you.
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 Schools for Bioethics/Medical Ethics in the United States
The schools below may not offer all types of medical ethics 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 20% of all the schools we analyze get awarded with a place on this list.
Every student pursuing a degree in bioethics/medical ethics has to take a look at University of Pennsylvania. Located in the city of Philadelphia, UPenn is a private not-for-profit university with a fairly large student population. A Best Colleges rank of #2 out of 2,152 schools nationwide means UPenn is a great university overall.
There were approximately 31 bioethics/medical ethics students who graduated with this degree at UPenn in the most recent data year. After graduating, medical ethics degree recipients usually earn about $80,564 in the first five years of their career.
It is hard to beat The University of Texas Medical Branch if you wish to pursue a degree in bioethics/medical ethics. UTMB Galveston is a small public university located in the small city of Galveston.
There were roughly 11 bioethics/medical ethics students who graduated with this degree at UTMB Galveston in the most recent data year.
Johns Hopkins University is a great option for students interested in a degree in bioethics/medical ethics. Johns Hopkins is a very large private not-for-profit university located in the large city of Baltimore. A Best Colleges rank of #6 out of 2,152 colleges nationwide means Johns Hopkins is a great university overall.
There were approximately 21 bioethics/medical ethics students who graduated with this degree at Johns Hopkins in the most recent year we have data available.
It's hard to beat University of Rochester if you want to pursue a degree in bioethics/medical ethics. Located in the medium-sized city of Rochester, University of Rochester is a private not-for-profit university with a fairly large student population. A Best Colleges rank of #82 out of 2,152 schools nationwide means University of Rochester is a great university overall.
There were roughly 41 bioethics/medical ethics students who graduated with this degree at University of Rochester in the most recent data year.
Located in the city of New York, NYU is a private not-for-profit university with a very large student population. A Best Colleges rank of #16 out of 2,152 schools nationwide means NYU is a great university overall.
There were approximately 14 bioethics/medical ethics students who graduated with this degree at NYU in the most recent year we have data available.
Located in the large city of Durham, Duke is a private not-for-profit university with a large student population. A Best Colleges rank of #7 out of 2,152 colleges nationwide means Duke is a great university overall.
There were about 45 bioethics/medical ethics students who graduated with this degree at Duke in the most recent data year.
Located in the suburb of Stony Brook, SUNY Stony Brook is a public university with a very large student population. This university ranks 14th out of 136 colleges for overall quality in the state of New York.
There were about 84 bioethics/medical ethics students who graduated with this degree at SUNY Stony Brook in the most recent data year.
Located in the large city of Louisville, Galen College of Nursing - Louisville is a private for-profit college with a small student population.
There were roughly 44 bioethics/medical ethics students who graduated with this degree at Galen College of Nursing - Louisville in the most recent data year.
OHIO Athens is a fairly large public university located in the distant town of Athens. This university ranks 7th out of 91 colleges for overall quality in the state of Ohio.
There were approximately 9 bioethics/medical ethics students who graduated with this degree at OHIO Athens in the most recent year we have data available.
Located in the large city of Atlanta, Emory is a private not-for-profit university with a large student population. A Best Colleges rank of #31 out of 2,152 schools nationwide means Emory is a great university overall.
There were approximately 8 bioethics/medical ethics students who graduated with this degree at Emory in the most recent year we have data available.
WGU is a very large private not-for-profit university located in the suburb of Salt Lake City. A Best Colleges rank of #66 out of 2,152 colleges nationwide means WGU is a great university overall.
There were approximately 1211 bioethics/medical ethics students who graduated with this degree at WGU in the most recent year we have data available.
Located in the city of Philadelphia, Temple is a public university with a very large student population. A Best Colleges rank of #97 out of 2,152 schools nationwide means Temple is a great university overall.
There were approximately 21 bioethics/medical ethics students who graduated with this degree at Temple in the most recent data year.
Located in the large city of Chicago, Loyola Chicago is a private not-for-profit university with a large student population. This university ranks 4th out of 85 schools for overall quality in the state of Illinois.
There were approximately 52 bioethics/medical ethics students who graduated with this degree at Loyola Chicago in the most recent data year.
These are some additional schools worth mentioning that are also great but just didn't quite make the cut to earn our top Best Bioethics/Medical Ethics Schools award.
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 bioethics/medical ethics school matters, so we have put together these rankings to help you make your decision. We derive our Best Overall Bioethics/Medical Ethics School rankings by rolling up our degree-level rankings after weighting them by the number of degrees awarded at each school.
