2023 Most Popular Bachelor’s Degree Colleges for Physics and Astronomy

With all of the options students have for higher education today, it can be tough to choose which direction to take. Our mission at College Factual is to arm you with as much information as we can to help you make that decision. Our “Most Well Attended Physics and Astronomy Major for a Bachelor’s” ranking is one tool we have developed to help in this regard.

Physics and Astronomy is the 356th most popular major in the country with 38 degrees awarded in 2020-2021. In 2019-2020, physics and astronomy graduates who were awarded their degree in 2017-2019, earned an average of $0 and had an average of $0 in loans still to pay off.

At the bachelor’s degree level specifically, there were 15 physics and astronomy graduates with average earnings and debt of $39,682 and $26,217 respectively.

This year’s “Most Well Attended Physics and Astronomy Major for a Bachelor’s” ranking looked at 2 colleges that offer degrees in a bachelor’s in physics and astronomy. This ranking identifies schools that graduate the most students in physics and astronomy.

Check out our ranking methodology for more information.

More Ways to Rank Physics and Astronomy Schools

Since picking the right college can be one of the most important decisions of your life, we’ve developed the “Most Well Attended Physics and Astronomy Major for a Bachelor’s” ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.

One of our other unique offerings is College Combat. This tool lets you build your own customized comparisons utilizing the factors that are most important to you. Go ahead and give it a try, or bookmark the link so you can check it out later.

Most Well Attended Physics and Astronomy Major for a Bachelor’s

The following schools top our list of the Best “Most Well Attended Physics and Astronomy Major for a Bachelor’s”.

Top 2 Most Popular Bachelor’s Degree Colleges for Physics and Astronomy

1

University of Kentucky
Lexington, Kentucky

Top 15% overall quality in United States

You’ll be in good company if you decide to attend University of Kentucky. It ranked #1 on our 2023 Most Well Attended Physics and Astronomy Major for a Bachelor’s list. Located in Lexington, Kentucky, this large public school awarded 15 degrees to qualified bachelors’s physics and astronomy students in 2020-2021.

Students who start out at the school are likely to stick around. The freshman retention rate is 86%. The school has an impressive undergrad student loan default rate. It’s only 4.3%, which is much lower than the national rate of 10.1%.

Read more about Physics and Astronomy at UK

2

Albion College
Albion, Michigan

You’ll be in good company if you decide to attend Albion College. It ranked #2 on our 2023 Most Well Attended Physics and Astronomy Major for a Bachelor’s list. Albion is a small school located in Albion, Michigan that handed out 0 bachelors’s physics and astronomy degrees in 2020-2021.

Read more about Physics and Astronomy at Albion

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

• *Avg Salary and Avg 4-Year Grad Rate 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.