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Best Value Social Work Graduate Certificate Schools in Illinois

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2023 Best Value Social Work Graduate Certificate Schools in Illinois

Identifying Quality Schools at More Affordable Prices

3 Colleges
$41,915 Avg Tuition & Fees*
$48,724 Avg Salary

Finding the Best Social Work Graduate Certificate School for You

Social Work is one of the most popular subjects to study in Illinois. With 1,812 degrees and certificates handed out in 2020-2021, it ranked 6th out of all the majors we track in the state.

When it comes to higher education, there are a lot of options for students. You can choose a traditional brick and mortar school, or with the growth of online education, you can attend a school half-way across the country without even leaving your house. Also there are many trade schools that offer short-term programs that open up more career options.

Along with in-depth profiles of schools and the programs they offer, Grad Degree Search has created the Best Value Social Work Graduate Certificate Schools in Illinois to help you in your search for the best school for you. This report analyzed 3 schools in Illinois to see which ones offered the best value graduate certificate programs for social work students. The goal was to highlight schools with more affordable prices than others offering similar quality experiences.

This ranking is not just a list of inexpensive schools. We also consider each school's quality, since we believe a low-quality school may not be a 'bargain' at any price. More specifically, we discount our quality score by the published tuition and fees charged by a school. This gives the cost per unit of quality for each college. The value is determined by how much quality your dollar buys.

For nationwide and regional rankings, we use out-of-state tuition and fees in our calculations. Average in-state tuition and fees are used for our statewide rankings.

2023 Best Value Social Work Graduate Certificate Schools in Illinois

The colleges and universities below are the best value schools for social work majors pursuing a graduate certificate.

Best Illinois Schools for Affordable Quality for a Postbaccalaureate Certificates in Social Work

#1

Aurora University

Aurora, IL

Our 2023 rankings named Aurora University the best value school in Illinois for social work students working on their graduate certificate. Aurora is a moderately-sized private not-for-profit school located in the suburb of Aurora.

The average tuition and fees for an in-state graduate student at Aurora are $14,100 a year.

Read More…

The excellent graduate certificate programs at Loyola University Chicago helped the school earn the #2 place on this year’s ranking of the best value social work schools in Illinois. Located in the large city of Chicago, Loyola Chicago is a private not-for-profit college with a fairly large student population.

The average tuition and fees for an in-state graduate student at Loyola Chicago are $19,894 a year.

Full Social Work at Loyola University Chicago Report

#3

University of Chicago

Chicago, IL

The excellent graduate certificate programs at University of Chicago helped the school earn the #3 place on this year’s ranking of the best value social work schools in Illinois. UChicago is a fairly large private not-for-profit school located in the large city of Chicago.

UChicago graduate students pay an average of $63,936 in in-state tuition and fees each year.

UChicago not only placed well in our value ranking, but it is also #2 on our Best Social Work Graduate Certificate Schools in Illinois list.

Read full report on Social Work at University of Chicago

Best Value Social Work Colleges in the Great Lakes Region

Explore all the Best Value Social Work Schools in the Great Lakes Area or other specific states within that region.

State Degrees Awarded
Michigan 1,332
Ohio 1,001
Indiana 615
Wisconsin 448

One of 5 majors within the area of study, social work has other similar majors worth exploring.

Related Major Annual Graduates
Public Administration 13,571
Public Policy 3,737
Human Services 1,277
Community Organization & Advocacy 741
Other Public Administration 295

Notes and References

*These averages are for the top 3 schools only.

  • 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).
  • Credit for the banner image above goes to Army Medicine.

More about our data sources and methodologies.

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