Best Graduate Schools for Social Work

The annual college survey conducted by US News and World Report ranks the following list of schools as having the top social work graduate programs in the country. The good news is that six of them are public universities with much lower tuition rates, on the average, than private schools. The more difficult fact is that in order to earn a social work degree from one of them you have to live in one of five states.

1. Washington University/St. Louis
2. Michigan
3. University of Chicago
4. Columbia
5. Washington
6. California/Berkeley
7. Texas
8. North Carolina
9. University of Southern California
10. UCLA

But if we expand this list to include other public schools in the top 25 there are some interesting graduate social work programs in operation. SUNY-Albany has a program for a combined master's in social work (MSW) and a law degree. The University of Illinois has an outreach version of its MSW program that is partially conducted in evening classes and online. That's the closest thing to an online graduate degree in social work that you'll find among the top social work colleges that are public institutions.

The University of Maryland has one of the top master's degree in social work programs which provides for a clinical social work concentration or a focus on management and community organization. Probably the best option among the top online social work colleges is Capella University, which offers a master's degree in social and behavioral sciences and one in social and community services.