SUMMARY

A degree in History is a valuable choice and commonly a mandatory first step for scholars choosing to begin a career as a history teacher, a museum archivist, or a gaelic studies professor. Interestingly, history is an extremely popular major choice, coming in at the 22nd most popular degree. In the last year, there were 25,943 history graduates. In-state tuition for history at private schools is, on average, 4.1 times more costly than their public counterparts.

With a staggering 1300 institutions having programs for this degree chances are that any institutions you are excited about will have a degree program for you. If you are hoping to immerse yourself with other history students, consider looking at institutions in California which have the most undergrads admitted to history annually. More generally, the best region to major in history is in the Southeast region with University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Liberty University, and University of Virginia-Main Campus best representing the region. Interestingly, our selection of the best conference to study history is the Pacific-12 Conference with University of California-Berkeley, University of California-Los Angeles, and University of Washington-Seattle Campus representing the conference. On that topic, our choice for the best college for history is Stanford University. You may also want to check out our list of best colleges.

The objectively 'best' school does not have to be the 'best' school for every student. There might be tons more factors to think about when choosing school. Features such as campus amenities, transportation services, and food would alter your inclinations of where to go to university. At authority.org, we have examined the pros and cons for you. If, as an example, you are interested in which history school has the best campus, the answer is Harvard University. If, for example, you are very interested in which university has the top campus, we have a whole list dedicated to that. We have carefully pored through professor reviews, student reviews, government databases, and more so we can compare every U.S. major in an unbiased and informative way. You can find our well researched list for the colleges with the best student life here and our selection for the university with the best student life for history is Barnard College. Are you curious why? Continue reading to find out more about our top selections. Some of our picks might shock you.

If price is a significant influence in your decisions, you might be cautious about Columbia University in the City of New York. Columbia University in the City of New York appears to be the most expensive college for history, at least for out of state attendance. We do have a list of the most expensive universities that might put the cost of Columbia University in the City of New York into perspective. For more context, you may be interested to know that history is the 10th most expensive program in the United States, with an average expense of $54,600. To zoom out a little, the most costly state for history in the nation is District of Columbia with expenses at the main three schools American University, George Washington University, and Georgetown University of $49,070, $54,453, and $54,453 respectively. To zoom out even further, the most expensive region of the country for history is the New England region which is best demonstrated with Amherst College with a cost of $57,640, Tufts University with a cost of $57,324, and Brown University with a cost of $57,112.

Our cheapest region for history is the Rocky Mountains region which is represented by Brigham Young University-Idaho with a cost of $4,208, Brigham Young University-Provo with a cost of $5,790, and Weber State University with a cost of $14,973. More optimistically, the most affordable university for history is University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Authority's full list of the most affordable colleges can be explored here.

In-state students can expect to pay around $9,900 for a degree in history. That cost swells dramatically to a median of $22,500 for an out-of-state public-school undergrad. On that note, our pick for the university with the best value for history: Stanford University. Here you can see our comprehensive list about the colleges we see as being the best value in general. With that said, this discussion is predicated on being an out-of-state student. A discussion of value changes when in-state tuition costs are considered, but we do not know where you live (and are not trying to collect that kind of data).

Earnings for history students can cover a wide range, but two-years after leaving college graduates will typically make around $42,900. There is much variation in pay; highest paid earners can make up to $105,400. Even right out of college, the lowest end jobs within the history field make $18,000, which could be worse. The highest earning grads for history have come from Stanford University and if you want to find the schools with all of the highest earning graduates, Authority has that too.

The general diversity of history sits on the higher end, coming within the 57th percentile of all programs. The college with the highest composite diversity for history is New York University and here you can find our general list of the universities which have the most diversity. The financial diversity of the History major only is within the 25th percentile of all majors. Racial diversity is greater than financial diversity, ranking in the 43rd percentile. White undergraduates make up the largest proportion at 64% of scholars majoring in history. Additionally, 56% of undergrads pursuing a history degree are men.

The median ranking for history's professors is 4.2 stars, which is 5% above the median score across all majors; this is a good ranking. If you want the most popular history professor nationally, look no further than Bruce Conforth from University of Michigan-Flint. It might be a shock, but the highest rated history professors according to students come from University of Michigan-Flint. If we including data other than simply rankings it becomes clear that the college possessing the overall best professors for history is Stanford University. You can find an explanation of our ever evolving ranking methodology for the best overall professors here, along with many of the top examples of professors in the U.S.

Finally, the most difficult school to get into for history is Stanford University. While we are unsure why you would be interested, we do have a comprehensive list for the hardest colleges to get into. With that said, here at Authority we do hope you believe that considering college with a perspective only derived from superlatives might cause problems. We at Authority hope you look at some of our other pages on individual colleges and explore a few of our background pages on useful things to look out for as your school search continues.