History Degrees in Kansas

Kansas has been the country’s fault line twice. Between 1854 and 1861 it was Bleeding Kansas, when the Kansas-Nebraska Act reopened the question of slavery in the western territories and roughly 55 people were killed in the fighting that followed. A century later, Brown v. Board of Education came out of Topeka, and the segregated school at the center of it is now a National Historical Park. Studying history in Kansas means studying it where two of the arguments actually happened.

Kansas has 19 colleges and universities offering history degrees, with 35 programs among them: 24 bachelor’s degrees, 9 master’s degrees, and 2 doctorates.

Two schools carry history from bachelor’s through doctorate, Kansas State and the University of Kansas, and our scoring separates them by a single point.

Top History Schools in Kansas

As with every state we cover, we scored all 21 Kansas schools on four factors: history degree offerings and program variety (40%), student outcomes (25%), reputation (20%), and affordability (15%). Kansas State and the University of Kansas tie for the deepest catalogs at four programs each, while Fort Hays State and Emporia State carry the best affordability scores among the schools that made the list, at $5,923 and $7,106 in state. Here are Kansas’s best history degrees.

Most Affordable History Degrees in Kansas

Most affordable history degrees in Kansas

Rank	School	Program	Tuition per year
1	Fort Hays State University	Bachelor's in History	$5,923
2	Emporia State University	B.S. in History and Government	$7,106
3	Pittsburg State University	Bachelor's in History	$8,400
4	Wichita State University	B.A. in History	$9,684
5	Washburn University	Bachelor's in History	$9,945
6	Kansas State University	B.A. or B.S. in History	$11,221
7	University of Kansas	B.A. in History	$12,102

Annual in-state tuition and fees. Every school here is public, and six of the seven offer history at the master’s level as well as the bachelor’s.

History Education in Kansas

Kansas is cheap for a history degree by national standards. Five public universities offer it between $5,923 and $9,945 a year, and Fort Hays State’s figure is among the lowest published rates for a history degree anywhere in the country.

The institutional split is lopsided in the usual direction but sharper than most. Fourteen private nonprofit colleges offer 15 history programs between them, roughly one apiece, while 7 public universities carry 20. Nearly every graduate program in the state sits at a public campus.

Transfer is unusually well protected. The Kansas Board of Regents approved a systemwide general education framework in summer 2022 covering 34 to 35 credit hours across seven disciplines. Complete it at any Kansas public community college or university and it is noted on your transcript, after which no other Kansas public institution can require you to repeat general education. That is a stronger guarantee than a course-by-course articulation list, because it travels as a completed block.

Online options are respectable for a state this size. Our directory finds 8 online history programs, six at the bachelor’s level and two at the master’s, with Fort Hays State running the most of any single school. Our guide to online history degrees covers how these programs work.

Becoming a History Teacher in Kansas

Kansas does not license history on its own. The endorsement is History, Government, and Social Studies for grades 6 through 12, so the credential covers civics, geography, and economics alongside the historical content.

The requirements are a bachelor’s degree with a state-approved teacher preparation program and a passing score on the Praxis subject assessment in the teaching field. Licensure runs through the Kansas State Department of Education.

That combined endorsement explains a curriculum choice you will notice while comparing programs. Emporia State’s degree is a B.S. in History and Government rather than a history B.A., and it splits into five tracks. Programs built that way map onto the license directly instead of leaving you to add the government and geography coursework separately.

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

History Careers in Kansas

History Careers in Kansas

Occupation	Kansas jobs	Kansas median	vs. U.S. median
Secondary school teachers	10,860	$59,920	-17%
Postsecondary history teachers	150	$74,920	-11%
Curators	120	$56,630	-11%
Archivists	30	$49,200	-24%
Historians	40	$72,600	-5%

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

Kansas pay trails the national median in every occupation here, but the ordering is unusual. Historians come closest at 5% below national, while archivists fall furthest behind at 24% below and secondary teaching sits 17% under. In most states the pattern runs the other way, with teaching close to national and the specialist roles lagging.

The counts are small throughout. Forty working historians and 30 archivists in the whole state, against 10,860 secondary teaching positions. Kansas is an inexpensive place to earn the degree and a thin place to use it in a specialist role, which is part of why the state’s own graduate programs lean toward applied and teaching-oriented tracks.

History Resources in Kansas

• Kansas Historical Society, formed in 1875 and headquartered in Topeka. Its State Archives division holds official state records, unpublished letters and diaries, a near-comprehensive run of Kansas newspapers on microfilm, and an extensive photograph collection.
• Brown v. Board of Education National Historical Park, Topeka. The former Monroe Elementary School, one of four segregated schools serving Topeka’s African American community, dedicated as a national site in 2004 on the fiftieth anniversary of the decision.

Frequently Asked Questions