History Degrees in Colorado

Every national park created before 1906 was set aside for its scenery. Mesa Verde was the first one established to protect what people had built, signed into existence by Theodore Roosevelt on June 29 of that year after a journalist named Virginia McClurg had spent three decades lobbying for it, having first seen the cliff dwellings in 1872. The park now holds nearly 5,000 archaeological sites and more than three million objects in its research collection. Colorado decided early that the physical remains of the past were worth an institution, and the state’s degree offering still reflects that.

Colorado has 16 colleges and universities offering history degrees, with 39 programs among them: 23 bachelor’s degrees, 14 master’s degrees, and 2 doctorates.

Thirteen master’s degrees against twenty-two bachelor’s is the most graduate-weighted balance of any state in the country.

Top History Schools in Colorado

We scored all 16 Colorado schools on the four factors we use in every state: history degree offerings and program variety (40%), student outcomes (25%), reputation (20%), and affordability (15%). Boulder leads on depth at 6 programs, with Colorado State at 5. Outcomes go to Denver at 76% and Boulder at 74% completing in four years. Reputation is unusually flat here, since four of the five schools below hold R1 classification. Affordability is what separates them, and it is decisive for Denver, which charges $61,398 against Colorado Springs’ $10,149. Here are Colorado’s best history degrees.

Most Affordable History Degrees in Colorado

Most affordable history degrees in Colorado

Rank	School	Program	Tuition per year
1	Colorado State University Pueblo	Bachelor's in History	$9,720
2	Colorado Mesa University	B.A. in History	$9,927
3	Fort Lewis College	Bachelor's in History	$9,958
4	University of Colorado Colorado Springs	B.A. in History	$10,149
5	University of Colorado Denver/Anschutz Medical Campus	Bachelor's in History	$10,383
6	Metropolitan State University of Denver	B.A. in History	$11,124
7	Western Colorado University	Bachelor's in History	$11,318
8	University of Northern Colorado	B.A. in History	$12,416
9	Colorado State University-Fort Collins	Bachelor's in History	$13,373

Annual in-state tuition and fees. Every school here is public, running from $9,720 to $13,373. Note that Adams State appears with a master’s rather than a bachelor’s, so it is a graduate option, not an undergraduate one.

History Education in Colorado

Colorado is built differently from most states. Thirteen of its 37 history programs are master’s degrees, 35% of the total, which is the most graduate-weighted balance in the country. Texas is next at 31%. In most states master’s degrees are a thin layer above a wide undergraduate base; in Colorado they are nearly as numerous as bachelor’s degrees.

The state is also overwhelmingly public. Twelve of the sixteen schools teaching history are public institutions and they carry 30 of the 37 programs, and every school on the affordability list is public, none charging above $13,373. The University of Denver at $61,398 is the only private university in the ranking and one of just four private colleges teaching the subject at all.

Applied history is Colorado’s genuine national strength. Six of its programs carry a public history designation, about 16% of everything on offer, the highest share of any state in the country. What makes it interesting is not the count but the specificity of the degrees:

• Colorado State offers a public history master’s with a museum studies option and a second with a cultural resource management specialization, plus a digital and public history concentration in the bachelor’s.
• CU Boulder teaches Museum and Field Studies, a natural-history-facing version of the field.
• CU Colorado Springs awards a Bachelor of Innovation in Museum Studies and Gallery Practice.
• CU Denver runs a straightforward Master’s in Public History, two of its three programs online.

Very few states let a student pick between digital history, cultural resource management, gallery practice, and field collections as named credentials. Colorado does, and mostly at public tuition.

Distance study is reasonable instead of strong: 6 online programs, four of them master’s, which fits the graduate weighting. CU Denver and CU Colorado Springs run two each. Our guide to online history degrees covers the wider field.

Transfer runs on Guaranteed Transfer (GT) Pathways, a 31-credit general education core across six content areas that has been in statute since 2001. Courses in it transfer and satisfy general education requirements at any Colorado public institution, with two conditions worth knowing: the grade must be no lower than a C-, and the course cannot duplicate one you have already used in the same category. Details are at the Colorado Department of Higher Education.

Becoming a History Teacher in Colorado

Colorado licenses teachers by endorsement, and secondary candidates demonstrate subject-matter knowledge through an examination administered via PLACE or Praxis, depending on the endorsement area.

Colorado’s requirements have shifted in recent years and the specific assessment attached to a social studies endorsement is the sort of detail that changes without much notice, so treat any guide, including this one, as a starting point, not an authority. Ask the Department of Education and your intended preparation program directly which examination applies to you.

What is worth planning for regardless is that a social studies endorsement covers considerably more ground than a history major. Geography, civics, and economics coursework is generally expected alongside the historical content.

Confirm current requirements with the Colorado Department of Education before choosing a program.

History Careers in Colorado

History Careers in Colorado

Occupation	Colorado jobs	Colorado median	vs. U.S. median
Secondary school teachers	18,310	$72,900	+1%
Postsecondary history teachers	380	$78,410	-6%
Curators	300	$73,630	+16%
Archivists	70	$59,210	-8%
Historians	not published	not published	n/a

Employment and wage data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, 2025. Colorado’s figures for historians were withheld entirely, both the employment count and the wage.

Curators are the standout, at $73,630 and 16% above the national median across 300 positions. That is a genuinely strong number for museum and collections work, and it is the one occupation here that clearly rewards the state’s heavy investment in public history and museum training. The two line up rather than pulling against each other, which is not true in North Carolina or Tennessee.

Everything else is close to national or slightly under. Secondary school teaching sits within a percent of the national median across 18,310 positions, which is where the volume is as always. Postsecondary history teaching is 6% below and archivists 8% below, on only 70 archivist jobs.

The honest gap is between curators and archivists: 300 positions at 16% above national against 70 positions at 8% below. If collections work is the plan, the curatorial side of it is much better supported here than the archival side.

History Resources in Colorado

• History Colorado, Denver. The state historical society, which runs the History Colorado Center as a public museum and maintains research collections alongside it, including manuscript material and recorded interviews that are not available elsewhere.
• Colorado State Archives, on Sherman Street in Denver. The official repository for state and county government records, which means court files, military and prison records, and school records, not the narrative collections held by History Colorado. The two institutions complement each other, and a serious research project in Colorado history will usually need both.

Frequently Asked Questions