Social Work is of the hottest bachelor's degree programs in the United States, coming in as the #24 most popular major in the country. This makes choosing the right school a hard decision.
In 2025, College Factual analyzed 371 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Social Work Bachelor's Degree Schools ranking. Combined, these schools handed out 20,308 bachelor's degrees in social work to qualified students.
Choosing a Great Social Work School for Your Bachelor's Degree
Your choice of social work for getting your bachelor's degree school matters. Important measures of a quality social work program can vary widely even among the top schools. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
Quality Overall Is Important
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 account for this we consider a school's overall Best Colleges ranking which itself looks at a combination of different factors like degree completion, educational resources, student body caliber and post-graduation earnings for the school as a whole.
Average Earnings
To determine the overall quality of a graduate school, one factor we look at is the average early-career salary of those receiving their bachelor's degree from the school. This is because one of the main reasons people pursue their bachelor's degree is to enable themselves to find better-paying positions.
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 social work students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - The number of social work 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 social work 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 social work related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for social work students working on their bachelor's degree.
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 Best Social Work Bachelor's Degree Schools list to help you make the college decision.
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 Bachelor’s Students to Study Social Work in the United States
Below you'll see a list of the best colleges and universities for pursuing a bachelor's degree in social work. Only those schools that rank in the top 20% of all the schools we analyze get awarded with a place on this list.
University of California - Berkeley is one of the best schools in the United States for getting a bachelor's degree in social work. Located in the city of Berkeley, UC Berkeley is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Bachelor's recipients from the social work major at University of California - Berkeley earn $8,309 more than the typical college grad in this field when they enter the workforce.
It is difficult to beat University of Washington - Seattle Campus if you wish to pursue a bachelor's degree in social work. UW Seattle is a fairly large public university located in the city of Seattle.
Those social work students who get their bachelor's degree from University of Washington - Seattle Campus make $4,372 more than the standard social work student.
Arizona State University - Tempe is one of the best schools in the United States for getting a bachelor's degree in social work. Located in the midsize city of Tempe, ASU - Tempe is a public university with a very large student population.
Those social work students who get their bachelor's degree from Arizona State University - Tempe earn $3,245 more than the typical social work grad.
Every student pursuing a degree in a bachelor's degree in social work has to look into Rutgers University - New Brunswick. Located in the city of New Brunswick, Rutgers New Brunswick is a public university with a very large student population.
Social Work bachelor's degree recipients from Rutgers University - New Brunswick get an earnings boost of approximately $3,339 above the typical income of social work graduates.
Located in the city of Columbus, Ohio State is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Social Work bachelor's degree recipients from Ohio State University - Main Campus receive an earnings boost of approximately $2,142 over the typical income of social work majors.
IUPUI is a very large public university located in the city of Indianapolis.
Those social work students who get their bachelor's degree from Indiana University - Purdue University - Indianapolis receive $5,060 more than the typical social work grad.
Located in the city of Lawrence, KU is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Bachelor's recipients from the social work degree program at University of Kansas get $3,435 more than the average graduate in this field when they enter the workforce.
This list represents the rest of the colleges awarded a Best Social Work Bachelor's Degree Schools badge.
Showing in this list means the college was ranked in the top 20% of the 371 different United States social work schools we analyzed.
These are some additional schools worth mentioning that are also great but just didn't quite make the cut to earn our top Best Social Work Bachelor's Degree 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 social work for getting your bachelor's degree school matters. Important measures of a quality social work program can vary widely even among the top schools. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
