Best universities for social science degrees 2024

Find the best colleges for social sciences using Times Higher Education’s World University Rankings data

October 28 2020

The social sciences include a range of subjects, from international relations to politics to geography.

Graduates of social science degrees go on to a wide range of careers in the public and private sectors.

Times Higher Education has published the 2021 ranking of the 791 best schools for social sciences across the world.

Almost a fifth of the list is made up of US universities – 158 institutions in total. UK universities take 92 of the remaining spots while Australia, China, Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan are also represented.

Rankings by subject

Best universities for arts and humanities
Best universities for business and economics
Best universities for clinical, pre-clinical and health
Best universities for computer science
Best universities for engineering and technology
Best universities for life sciences
Best universities for physical sciences
Best universities for law degrees
Best universities for education degrees
Best universities for psychology degrees

Three UK institutions are in the top 10 (the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and London School of Economics and Political Science), while the rest of the top 10 is dominated by US universities.

The social sciences ranking uses the same methodology as the World University Rankings, but with less weight given to citations and more to research and teaching metrics. The full methodology can be found here.

Scroll down for a full list of degrees covered by the ranking and what you can do with them.

Best universities worldwide

Best universities in the world
Best universities in the United States
Best universities in the UK
Best universities in Canada
Best universities in Australia
Best universities in Europe

Top five universities for social sciences

1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The School of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology offers many subjects, including politics and women’s and gender studies. The school’s roots lie in the university’s founding, when courses in psychology and political science were taught.

The school produces a magazine called Said and Done, which highlights some of the research undertaken within the faculty.

All students at MIT are expected to take social science classes to help them solve “some of the world’s most challenging problems”.

As of 2020, four Nobel laureates, seven MacArthur Fellows and five Pulitzer prizewinners are faculty members.

2. University of Oxford

Perhaps the most famous social sciences degree at the University of Oxford is PPE: politics, philosophy and economics.

A number of influential politicians and public figures have earned an Oxford PPE degree, including a significant number of British prime ministers. Nobel Peace prizewinner and advocate for women’s education, Malala Yousafzai, has just completed a PPE degree at the institution.

The social sciences division also tackles issues such as environmental change, poverty, cybercrime, political turmoil, social inequality and immigration.

Much of the social science research at Oxford is aimed at influencing policy in the UK and around the world.

Particular research strengths include big data, future cities, resource management and global economic performance.

Aside from PPE, undergraduate courses within the division include geography, archaeology and anthropology, and law and human sciences.

3. Stanford University

The social sciences department at Stanford University offers anthropology, communication, economics, political science, psychology and sociology courses.

Many programmes are interdisciplinary, including ethics in society, democracy, development and the rule of law, and urban studies.

In political science classes, undergraduates study US politics and international political systems and relate them to conflict, social activism, ideology and race issues.

The department splits studies into five disciplines: US politics, comparative politics, international relations, political methodology and political theory.

The department of anthropology is known for an innovative approach that insists the subject must be studied in relation to contemporary affairs.

Students learn research methods and theory to carry them through the course of their choice.

What can you do with a media and communications degree?
What can you do with a geography degree?
What can you do with a politics degree?
What can you do with a sociology degree?

4. Harvard University

Social sciences at Harvard University is interdisciplinary.

Fields of study include economics, government, sociology, gender studies and psychology.

For all of these subjects, both undergraduates and graduates are expected to conduct empirical research and analyse data. Senior thesis projects can involve qualitative or quantitative research methods, or both.

The Regan Fund at the university is used to invite famous speakers to Harvard to give lectures on economics, government and social problems around the world. These lectures are primarily aimed at undergraduates.

The social sciences division has relationships with a number of museums and research centres, including the Harvard-MIT Data Center and the Institute for Quantitative Social Science.

5. University of California, Berkeley

Fifteen departments and programmes make up the social sciences department at the University of California, Berkeley. These include African American studies, cognitive psychology, linguistics, political economy and sociology.

The division is the largest within the university, with 20 percent of the total faculty members and 25 percent of enrolled students.

Student experience of the social sciences

From a waiter working in Singapore to becoming a Harvard graduate
Sociology students use their degree to unpick global issues
How to make an award-winning student film project
International perspective: a Filipino student in Hungary
Learning new things at Kobe University
Considering doing a master’s? Why not do it abroad
Brits in America: social studies?
A day in the life of a student in Canada

Best universities for social science degrees 2021

Click each institution to view its World University Ranking 2021 profile

Social sciences rank 2021	Social sciences rank 2020	University	Country/region
1	1	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	United States
2	2	University of Oxford	United Kingdom
3	4	Stanford University	United States
4	3	Harvard University	United States
5	13	University of California, Berkeley	United States
6	5	University of Cambridge	United Kingdom
7	6	Princeton University	United States
8	7	London School of Economics and Political Science	United Kingdom
9	9	University of Michigan-Ann Arbor	United States
10	8	Yale University	United States
11	10	The University of Chicago	United States
12	12	University of California, Los Angeles	United States
13	14	University of Pennsylvania	United States
14	11	UCL	United Kingdom
15	20	University of Wisconsin-Madison	United States
16	17	New York University	United States
=17	15	Columbia University	United States
=17	16	Duke University	United States
=17	18	Peking University	China
20	19	Cornell University	United States
21	=23	University of Amsterdam	Netherlands
22	=23	National University of Singapore	Singapore
23	32	Northwestern University	United States
24	33	University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill	United States
25	21	ETH Zurich	Switzerland
26	22	University of Hong Kong	Hong Kong
=27	=28	University of British Columbia	Canada
=27	26	University of Toronto	Canada
29	=30	University of Manchester	United Kingdom
30	34	University of Texas at Austin	United States
31	25	University of Washington	United States
32	=28	Johns Hopkins University	United States
33	=38	Utrecht University	Netherlands
34	=30	Tsinghua University	China
35	52	Paris Sciences et Lettres – PSL Research University Paris	France
36	27	Australian National University	Australia
37	42	Leiden University	Netherlands
=38	41	University of California, San Diego	United States
=38	35	University of Mannheim	Germany
=40	49	Humboldt University of Berlin	Germany
=40	=46	KU Leuven	Belgium
42	40	University of Sussex	United Kingdom
43	37	University of Southern California	United States
=44	36	University of Edinburgh	United Kingdom
=44	50	Penn State (Main campus)	United States
46	=43	Ohio State University (Main campus)	United States
47	=43	University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign	United States
48	45	The University of Tokyo	Japan
49	=46	McGill University	Canada
50	64	University of Melbourne	Australia
51	53	Indiana University	United States
=52	48	University of Essex	United Kingdom
=52	61	Nanyang Technological University, Singapore	Singapore
54	=38	King’s College London	United Kingdom
55	57	University of Copenhagen	Denmark
56	56	Free University of Berlin	Germany
57	60	University of Minnesota	United States
=58	71	Erasmus University Rotterdam	Netherlands
=58	65	University of Maryland, College Park	United States
60	84	Aarhus University	Denmark
61	72	University of Oslo	Norway
=62	58	Chinese University of Hong Kong	Hong Kong
=62	=69	The University of Queensland	Australia
=64	76	Brown University	United States
=64	=73	University of Zurich	Switzerland
66	=73	Arizona State University (Tempe)	United States
67	62	Michigan State University	United States
68	=69	Sciences Po	France
69	98	Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam	Netherlands
70	59	University of Sheffield	United Kingdom
=71	=86	University of Vienna	Austria
=71	66	Wageningen University & Research	Netherlands
73	67	LMU Munich	Germany
=74	51	The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology	Hong Kong
=74	101–125	Loughborough University	United Kingdom
76	97	University of Sydney	Australia
77	54	Georgetown University	United States
78	=81	University of Warwick	United Kingdom
=79	75	University of California, Santa Barbara	United States
=79	80	Uppsala University	Sweden
81	=81	Lund University	Sweden
=82	96	Hong Kong Polytechnic University	Hong Kong
=82	=88	Stockholm University	Sweden
84	55	Carnegie Mellon University	United States
85	63	Durham University	United Kingdom
86	=78	Delft University of Technology	Netherlands
87	=99	UNSW Sydney	Australia
88	=88	University of Konstanz	Germany
89	91	Washington University in St Louis	United States
=90	101–125	Boston University	United States
=90	85	Kyoto University	Japan
92	101–125	University of Groningen	Netherlands
=93	101–125	City University of Hong Kong	Hong Kong
=93	95	University of York	United Kingdom
95	=86	Syracuse University	United States
=96	68	University of Arizona	United States
=96	=93	Lancaster University	United Kingdom
=96	101–125	University of Leeds	United Kingdom
99	126–150	Monash University	Australia
100	90	Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey	United States
101–125	126–150	University of Antwerp	Belgium
101–125	151–175	University of Auckland	New Zealand
101–125	101–125	Autonomous University of Barcelona	Spain
101–125	101–125	University of Birmingham	United Kingdom
101–125	101–125	University of Bristol	United Kingdom
101–125	=81	University of California, Irvine	United States
101–125	92	University of Cape Town	South Africa
101–125	101–125	Cardiff University	United Kingdom
101–125	151–175	City, University of London	United Kingdom
101–125	126–150	Copenhagen Business School	Denmark
101–125	101–125	Dartmouth College	United States
101–125	101–125	University of East Anglia	United Kingdom
101–125	101–125	University of Exeter	United Kingdom
101–125	101–125	Fudan University	China
101–125	101–125	George Washington University	United States
101–125	77	Georgia Institute of Technology	United States
101–125	101–125	Ghent University	Belgium
101–125	101–125	Goldsmiths, University of London	United Kingdom
101–125	126–150	University of Gothenburg	Sweden
101–125	101–125	Université Catholique de Louvain	Belgium
101–125	101–125	University of Montreal	Canada
101–125	101–125	University of Notre Dame	United States
101–125	126–150	University of Southampton	United Kingdom
101–125	126–150	Tilburg University	Netherlands
101–125	=93	University of Twente	Netherlands
126–150	101–125	University of Bern	Switzerland
126–150	151–175	Clark University	United States
126–150	101–125	University of Colorado Boulder	United States
126–150	176–200	Drexel University	United States
126–150	126–150	Emory University	United States
126–150	151–175	University of Florida	United States
126–150	101–125	University of Georgia	United States
126–150	126–150	University of Glasgow	United Kingdom
126–150	=99	Hebrew University of Jerusalem	Israel
126–150	126–150	University of Helsinki	Finland
126–150	176–200	University of Klagenfurt	Austria
126–150	151–175	Maastricht University	Netherlands
126–150	151–175	Nanjing University	China
126–150	151–175	University of Nottingham	United Kingdom
126–150	126–150	Pompeu Fabra University	Spain
126–150	201–250	University of São Paulo	Brazil
126–150	101–125	Seoul National University	South Korea
126–150	126–150	Simon Fraser University	Canada
126–150	126–150	SOAS University of London	United Kingdom
126–150	176–200	Texas A&M University	United States
126–150	126–150	Trinity College Dublin	Republic of Ireland
126–150	101–125	Vanderbilt University	United States
126–150	126–150	University of Virginia (Main campus)	United States
126–150	126–150	Vrije Universiteit Brussel	Belgium
126–150	151–175	University of the Witwatersrand	South Africa
151–175	176–200	University of Bath	United Kingdom
151–175	176–200	University of Bergen	Norway
151–175	151–175	University of Bologna	Italy
151–175	=78	University of California, Davis	United States
151–175	126–150	University of California, Santa Cruz	United States
151–175	201–250	Curtin University	Australia
151–175	176–200	Florida State University	United States
151–175	126–150	University of Geneva	Switzerland
151–175	176–200	Griffith University	Australia
151–175	151–175	University of Hawai’i at Mānoa	United States
151–175	126–150	University of Illinois at Chicago	United States
151–175	151–175	University of Lausanne	Switzerland
151–175	176–200	Université libre de Bruxelles	Belgium
151–175	176–200	University of Massachusetts	United States
151–175	126–150	National Taiwan University (NTU)	Taiwan
151–175	176–200	Newcastle University	United Kingdom
151–175	151–175	University of Otago	New Zealand
151–175	176–200	Queen Mary University of London	United Kingdom
151–175	151–175	Rice University	United States
151–175	151–175	Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa	Italy
151–175	126–150	University of St Andrews	United Kingdom
151–175	126–150	Technical University of Berlin	Germany
151–175	176–200	University College Dublin	Republic of Ireland
151–175	126–150	The University of Western Australia	Australia
151–175	151–175	Zhejiang University	China
176–200	176–200	Aberystwyth University	United Kingdom
176–200	401–500	Auckland University of Technology	New Zealand
176–200	151–175	Beijing Normal University	China
176–200	201–250	Boston College	United States
176–200	176–200	University of Canberra	Australia
176–200	401–500	Chulalongkorn University	Thailand
176–200	176–200	École des Ponts ParisTech	France
176–200	151–175	University of Freiburg	Germany
176–200	201–250	George Mason University	United States
176–200	151–175	University of Göttingen	Germany
176–200	151–175	HSE University	Russian Federation
176–200	176–200	University of Kent	United Kingdom
176–200	126–150	University of Pittsburgh-Pittsburgh campus	United States
176–200	NR	Radboud University Nijmegen	Netherlands
176–200	176–200	Sapienza University of Rome	Italy
176–200	NR	Sejong University	South Korea
176–200	176–200	Shanghai Jiao Tong University	China
176–200	126–150	Sorbonne University	France
176–200	251–300	State University of New York Albany	United States
176–200	176–200	Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences	Sweden
176–200	201–250	Universiti Teknologi Malaysia	Malaysia
176–200	176–200	Tel Aviv University	Israel
176–200	201–250	Temple University	United States
176–200	151–175	University of Waterloo	Canada
176–200	176–200	Wuhan University	China