History Degrees in Georgia

Georgia was chartered in 1732 as the last of the thirteen colonies and, according to the New Georgia Encyclopedia, was the only British American colony to attempt to prohibit slavery as a matter of public policy. The ban came in 1735, two years after the first settlers reached Savannah. It lasted until January 1, 1751, when the Trustees asked Parliament to repeal their own law, having concluded that colonists importing enslaved people through Augusta had already made the prohibition unenforceable. A rule, an evasion, and a surrender, all inside sixteen years, is a compact lesson in how policy actually works. Learning how that works costs less in Georgia than in any other state.

Georgia has 44 colleges and universities offering history degrees, with 101 programs among them: 74 bachelor’s degrees, 16 master’s degrees, and 11 doctorates.

It is also the cheapest state in the country to study the subject, with in-state tuition starting at $3,268 a year.

Top History Schools in Georgia

We scored all 44 Georgia 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%). Emory takes depth outright at 18 programs, with Georgia Southern and UGA at 6. Outcomes go to Georgia Tech at 94% and Emory at 91% completing in four years. Reputation rests on four R1 universities. Affordability is what keeps this list competitive at all, since Kennesaw State at $5,808 and Georgia Southern at $6,022 cost roughly a tenth of Emory. Here are Georgia’s best history degrees.

Most Affordable History Degrees in Georgia

Annual in-state tuition and fees. Every school here is public, and all ten come in under $5,700. Abraham Baldwin’s $3,268 is the lowest published figure for a history degree anywhere in the country.

History Education in Georgia

Georgia is the least expensive state in the country to study history. Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College charges $3,268 a year, the lowest figure we have recorded anywhere, and every school on the list above comes in under $5,700. Even the ranked public universities stay cheap by national standards, from Kennesaw State at $5,808 to Georgia Tech at $12,058. The one exception is Emory at $64,280, which sits at the top of our ranking and in a different financial universe from everything beneath it.

That price advantage extends to graduate work. Georgia holds 11 history doctorates, and the cheapest of them is at Georgia State for $8,664 in state. Four schools teach the subject at all three levels.

Georgia trains more history teachers than any other state. Seven of its history programs are built around classroom preparation, more than Illinois at six or Texas at five, and the state’s certification structure explains why: history is its own 6-12 certification field in Georgia, not a component of a broader social studies credential. Georgia State runs a pre-education track, Valdosta and West Georgia both offer secondary education routes inside the history degree, and the alignment between the degree and the license is unusually direct.

Georgia Tech is worth separating out because it is genuinely unlike anything else in the state. There is no conventional history major there. The undergraduate degree is a B.S. in History, Technology, and Society, and the doctorate is in the history and sociology of technology and science. Students interested in how technical knowledge gets made, used, and regulated have a full path from bachelor’s to Ph.D.; students who want medieval Europe do not.

The weak spot is severe and worth stating plainly. Georgia has one online history program in the entire state, across 99 programs at 44 institutions. That is the thinnest online provision of any large state in the country. Anyone who needs to study at a distance will be enrolling elsewhere, and our guide to online history degrees covers the options.

Transfer runs through Core IMPACTS, the University System of Georgia’s 42-hour core across seven domains, in place for students who started or updated a degree from summer 2024. The mechanic is unusual and works in your favor: credit transfers domain to domain rather than course to course. Because every USG institution shares the same seven-domain design while offering different courses inside it, a course that satisfied a domain at one campus satisfies that domain at the next, without needing an exact equivalent. Details are at the University System of Georgia.

Becoming a History Teacher in Georgia

Georgia is one of the states where a history graduate is certified in history. The credential is History, grades 6-12, a field in its own right, not a slice of a broader social studies endorsement, which is the arrangement in Florida, California, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania.

The route is a bachelor’s degree plus a GaPSC-approved educator preparation program. The entry requirements to that program are stricter than in most states and come earlier: you need a 2.5 GPA, a passing score on the GACE Program Admission Assessment, and the GACE Educator Ethics Assessment at program entry. All of that happens before you begin the preparation coursework, not at the end of it.

Certification testing then runs through the GACE system.

The upshot for choosing a degree is that Georgia has more history programs built for teaching than any other state, so the coursework can be folded into the major instead of bolted on. Georgia State’s pre-education track, Valdosta’s secondary education route, and West Georgia’s equivalent are all designed for this.

Confirm current requirements with the Georgia Professional Standards Commission before choosing a program.

History Careers in Georgia

Employment and wage data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, 2025.

Secondary school teaching is the only occupation here that pays above the national median, at 5% above across 25,730 positions. Everything else trails: postsecondary history teaching 6% below, curators and archivists both 9% below, and historians 17% below.

That ordering fits the rest of the page. Georgia trains more history teachers than any other state, licenses history as its own field, and pays classroom teachers above the national rate. It is a coherent system, and for a student whose plan is a Georgia classroom the numbers line up well: tuition from $3,268 and a teaching premium at the other end.

The specialist roles are a different proposition. Georgia supports 230 curator and 150 archivist positions, which are modest counts, at wages 9% under national. The state’s museum studies provision is limited to two schools, which is consistent with that market rather than at odds with it.

History Resources in Georgia

• Georgia Historical Society, Savannah, founded 1839. It is the oldest continuously operating state historical society in the South and one of the oldest historical organizations in the country. Its home, Hodgson Hall, holds books, newspapers, and manuscripts covering the state’s history.
• Georgia Archives, Morrow, created in 1918. The state repository, with climate-controlled vaults, a research room for original documents, a library, and conservation and reformatting labs.
• Atlanta History Center, open Tuesday through Sunday. Alongside its galleries it operates the 1928 Swan House and the Smith Family Farm, a restored antebellum farm.

Frequently Asked Questions