2023 Best Liberal Arts Doctor’s Degree Colleges for Veterans

When pursuing a degree in today’s world, veterans have many different options to choose from. Our mission at College Factual is to arm you with as much information as we can to help you make that decision. Our “Most Veteran Friendly for Liberal Studies for a Doctorate” ranking is one tool we have developed to help in this regard.

Liberal Arts is one of the most popular majors in the nation, ranking 2nd of all the majors we analyze. In 2020-2021, 366,996 degrees were awarded to students with this major.

This year’s “Most Veteran Friendly for Liberal Studies for a Doctorate” ranking looked at 2 colleges that offer degrees in a bachelor’s in liberal arts. This ranking identifies schools with high-quality liberal arts programs as well as strong veteran support.

Some of the factors we look at when determining these rankings are overall quality of the liberal arts program at the school, veteran affordability, and veteran population. Check out our ranking methodology for more information.

More Ways to Rank Liberal Arts 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 “Most Veteran Friendly for Liberal Studies for a Doctorate” list to help you make the college decision.

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.

Most Veteran Friendly for Liberal Studies for a Doctorate

The colleges and universities below are the best for doctor’s degree vets studying liberal studies.

Top 2 Best Liberal Arts Doctor’s Degree Colleges for Veterans

1

Georgetown University
Washington, District of Columbia

10 GI Bill® Students**

#1 in overall quality

YES Student Veterans Organization

Out of the 2 schools in the Most Veteran Friendly for Liberal Studies for a Doctorate that were part of this year’s ranking, Georgetown University landed the #1 spot on the list. This large school is located in Washington, District of Columbia, and it awarded 6 doctorate’s liberal studies degrees in 2020-2021.

In addition to being on our doctor’s degree vets studying liberal studies list, Georgetown has also earned the #1 rank in our “Best Liberal Arts Doctor’s Degree Schools” ranking.Our most recent data shows that 10 of the 19,371 students enrolled at Georgetown were GI Bill® students, of which 5 were Post-9/11 GI Bill® recipients. The average tuition and fees award for the Post-9/11 GI Bill® recipients was $30,300. In addition to receiving other benefits, 1 students qualified for the Yellow Ribbon Program. Eligible students may be able to receive credit for their military training.

The school has an impressive undergrad student loan default rate. It’s only [DEFAULT_RATE_STRING]%, which is much lower than the national rate of 10.1%. Students who start out at the school are likely to stick around. The freshman retention rate is 94%.

[Read full report on veteran student life at Georgetown University]](/colleges/georgetown-university/student-life/veterans/)

2

Southern Methodist University
Dallas, Texas

327 GI Bill® Students**

#2 in overall quality

YES Student Veterans Organization

You’ll be in good company if you decide to attend Southern Methodist University. It ranked #2 on our 2023 Most Veteran Friendly for Liberal Studies for a Doctorate list. SMU is a private not-for-profit institution located in Dallas, Texas. The school has a fairly large population, and it awarded 9 doctorate’s degrees in 2020-2021.

SMU also made our “Best Liberal Arts Doctor’s Degree Schools” list, coming in at #2.According to our most recent data, SMU supports 12,373 students, and 327 of those are GI Bill® students, of which 215 are Post-9/11 GI Bill® recipients. The average tuition and fees award for the Post-9/11 GI Bill® recipients was $15,612. To help with additional expenses, 103 students qualified for the Yellow Ribbon Program. SMU offers credit for military training for eligible students.

The school has an excellent freshman retention rate of 90%, which means students like the school well enough to return for a second year. The low undergrad student loan default rate of [DEFAULT_RATE_STRING]% is a good sign that students have an easier time paying off their loans than they might at other schools. For comparison, the national default rate is 10.1%.

[Read full report on veteran student life at Southern Methodist University]](/colleges/southern-methodist-university/student-life/veterans/)

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).
• Veteran-specific data can be found at the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs.
• 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

• *Avg Salary and Avg 4-Year Grad Rate are for the top schools only.
• **GI Bill® student total includes all chapters of the GI Bill® program (e.g., Post-9/11, Montgomery GI Bill, Reserve Education Assistance Program, and Veteran Readiness and Employment)
• 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.