Divinity/Ministry is of the hottest degree programs in the United States, coming in as the #113 most popular major in the country. This means there are lots of options to choose from when you decide to get your degree.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 4 schools in California to determine which ones were the best for divinity/ministry students pursuing a degree. Combined, these schools handed out 411 degrees in divinity/ministry to qualified students.
Your choice of divinity/ministry school matters, so we have put together these rankings to help you make your decision. We derive our Best Overall Divinity/Ministry School rankings by rolling up our degree-level rankings after weighting them by the number of degrees awarded at each school.
You may want to choose one of the degree levels below to find the schools of most interest to you.
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 Divinity/Ministry Schools in California list to help you make the college decision.
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 divinity studies degrees so you may want to filter by degree level first. However, they are great for the degree levels they do offer.
It's hard to beat The Master's University and Seminary if you wish to pursue a degree in divinity/ministry. The Master's University is a small private not-for-profit university located in the suburb of Santa Clarita. This university ranks 55th out of 161 schools for overall quality in the state of California.
There were about 45 divinity/ministry students who graduated with this degree at The Master's University in the most recent year we have data available.
It's difficult to beat Biola University if you wish to pursue a degree in divinity/ministry. Located in the suburb of La Mirada, Biola is a private not-for-profit university with a medium-sized student population. This university ranks 86th out of 161 colleges for overall quality in the state of California.
There were approximately 56 divinity/ministry students who graduated with this degree at Biola in the most recent data year.
It is hard to beat Azusa Pacific University if you want to pursue a degree in divinity/ministry. Azusa Pacific is a medium-sized private not-for-profit university located in the large suburb of Azusa. A Best Colleges rank of #143 out of 2,152 schools nationwide means Azusa Pacific is a great university overall.
There were roughly 32 divinity/ministry students who graduated with this degree at Azusa Pacific in the most recent data year.
SUM Bible College and Theological Seminary is one of the finest schools in the United States for getting a degree in divinity/ministry. Located in the suburb of El Dorado Hills, School of Urban Missions is a private not-for-profit college with a small student population.
There were approximately 12 divinity/ministry students who graduated with this degree at School of Urban Missions 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 divinity/ministry school matters, so we have put together these rankings to help you make your decision. We derive our Best Overall Divinity/Ministry School rankings by rolling up our degree-level rankings after weighting them by the number of degrees awarded at each school.
