If you plan on majoring in linguistics, you won't be alone since the degree program is ranked #206 in the country in terms of popularity. As a result, there are many college that offer the degree, making your choice of school a hard one.
College Factual looked at 65 colleges and universities when compiling its 2025 Best Linguistics Schools ranking. Combined, these schools handed out 3,082 degrees in linguistics to qualified students.
Your choice of linguistics school matters, so we have put together these rankings to help you make your decision. We derive our Best Overall Linguistics School rankings by rolling up our degree-level rankings after weighting them by the number of degrees awarded at each school.
In order to find the schools that are the best fit for you, you may want to filter to one of the degree levels below.
The linguistics school you choose to invest your time and money in matters. To help you make the decision that is right for you, we've developed a number of major-specific rankings, including this list of the Best Linguistics Schools.
If you'd like to restrict your choices to just one part of the country, you can filter this list by location.
In addition to our rankings, you can take two colleges and compare them based on the criteria that matters most to you in our unique tool, College Combat.
Test it out when you get a chance! You may also want to bookmark the link and share it with others who are trying to make the college decision.
The schools below may not offer all types of linguistics degrees so you may want to filter by degree level first. However, they are great for the degree levels they do offer. 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 - Los Angeles is a great option for students interested in a degree in linguistics. UCLA is a very large public university located in the city of Los Angeles. A Best Colleges rank of #28 out of 2,152 colleges nationwide means UCLA is a great university overall.
There were about 46 linguistics students who graduated with this degree at UCLA in the most recent year we have data available.
Any student pursuing a degree in linguistics has to take a look at Columbia University in the City of New York. Columbia is a very large private not-for-profit university located in the large city of New York. A Best Colleges rank of #15 out of 2,152 schools nationwide means Columbia is a great university overall.
There were roughly 11 linguistics students who graduated with this degree at Columbia in the most recent data year.
Cornell University is one of the finest schools in the country for getting a degree in linguistics. Located in the small city of Ithaca, Cornell is a private not-for-profit university with a very large student population. A Best Colleges rank of #9 out of 2,152 schools nationwide means Cornell is a great university overall.
There were approximately 29 linguistics students who graduated with this degree at Cornell in the most recent data year.
University of Southern California is one of the best schools in the United States for getting a degree in linguistics. Located in the large city of Los Angeles, USC is a private not-for-profit university with a fairly large student population. A Best Colleges rank of #13 out of 2,152 colleges nationwide means USC is a great university overall.
There were approximately 12 linguistics students who graduated with this degree at USC in the most recent data year.
Georgetown is a very large private not-for-profit university located in the city of Washington. A Best Colleges rank of #11 out of 2,152 colleges nationwide means Georgetown is a great university overall.
There were approximately 53 linguistics students who graduated with this degree at Georgetown in the most recent year we have data available.
UCSB is a very large public university located in the suburb of Santa Barbara. This university ranks 7th out of 161 colleges for overall quality in the state of California.
There were approximately 69 linguistics students who graduated with this degree at UCSB in the most recent data year.
Located in the small city of Santa Cruz, UC Santa Cruz is a public university with a fairly large student population. This university ranks 13th out of 161 schools for overall quality in the state of California.
There were approximately 47 linguistics students who graduated with this degree at UC Santa Cruz in the most recent data year.
UMass Amherst is a very large public university located in the small city of Amherst. This university ranks 10th out of 63 schools for overall quality in the state of Massachusetts.
There were approximately 43 linguistics students who graduated with this degree at UMass Amherst in the most recent data year.
UF is a fairly large public university located in the medium-sized city of Gainesville. This university ranks 1st out of 70 schools for overall quality in the state of Florida.
There were roughly 75 linguistics students who graduated with this degree at UF in the most recent year we have data available.
Located in the medium-sized city of Ann Arbor, U-M is a public university with a very large student population. A Best Colleges rank of #22 out of 2,152 schools nationwide means U-M is a great university overall.
There were roughly 38 linguistics students who graduated with this degree at U-M in the most recent year we have data available.
Located in the medium-sized city of Berkeley, UC Berkeley is a public university with a fairly large student population. A Best Colleges rank of #14 out of 2,152 colleges nationwide means UC Berkeley is a great university overall.
There were roughly 80 linguistics students who graduated with this degree at UC Berkeley in the most recent year we have data available.
UW Seattle is a very large public university located in the city of Seattle. A Best Colleges rank of #44 out of 2,152 schools nationwide means UW Seattle is a great university overall.
There were about 63 linguistics students who graduated with this degree at UW Seattle in the most recent year we have data available.
UIUC is a fairly large public university located in the city of Champaign. A Best Colleges rank of #41 out of 2,152 schools nationwide means UIUC is a great university overall.
There were roughly 38 linguistics students who graduated with this degree at UIUC in the most recent data year.
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 linguistics school matters, so we have put together these rankings to help you make your decision. We derive our Best Overall Linguistics School rankings by rolling up our degree-level rankings after weighting them by the number of degrees awarded at each school.
