History Degrees in Louisiana

Forty-nine states run their private law on English common law. Louisiana does not. When the United States bought the territory in 1803 it kept the French and Spanish civil law already in place, and in March 1808 the Legislature of the Territory of Orleans promulgated a civil code drawn roughly seventy percent from Napoleon’s. Property, contracts, business entities, and family law in Louisiana still descend from that decision. It is the clearest example in the country of a two-hundred-year-old choice that never stopped being load-bearing, which is a fair argument for studying how such choices get made.

Louisiana has 20 colleges and universities offering history degrees, with 39 programs among them: 25 bachelor’s degrees, 10 master’s degrees, and 4 doctorates.

Nearly a third of those programs are online, which is the third-highest proportion of any state in the country.

Top History Schools in Louisiana

We scored all 20 Louisiana 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%). Tulane leads on depth at 6 programs with LSU at 4. Outcomes go to Tulane at 86% and LSU at 69% completing in four years. Reputation rests on three R1 universities. Affordability puts LSU first anyway, since it charges $11,954 in state against Tulane’s $68,678. Here are Louisiana’s best history degrees.

Most Affordable History Degrees in Louisiana

Most affordable history degrees in Louisiana

Rank	School	Program	Tuition per year
1	Louisiana State University at Alexandria	B.A. in History	$7,050
2	Louisiana State University-Shreveport	Bachelor's in History	$7,518
3	Grambling State University	Bachelor's in History	$7,683
4	Southern University at New Orleans	B.A. in History	$8,054
5	Nicholls State University	B.A. in History	$8,149
6	Southeastern Louisiana University	B.A. in History	$8,373
7	McNeese State University	Bachelor's in History	$8,489
8	Northwestern State University of Louisiana	B.A. in History	$8,864
9	University of New Orleans	B.A. in History	$9,172
10	University of Louisiana at Monroe	B.A. in History	$9,190

Annual in-state tuition and fees. Every school here is public, and the entire list falls between $7,050 and $9,190, which is a tight and inexpensive band by national standards.

History Education in Louisiana

Louisiana is cheap and public. All ten of the most affordable schools are public universities and every one of them costs between $7,050 and $9,190, a narrower and lower band than most states manage. Fourteen public institutions carry 27 of the state’s 39 programs against six private colleges carrying 12, and only Tulane breaks the pattern at the top of the market.

Distance learning is the state’s real strength. Twelve of Louisiana’s 39 history programs are online, about 31%, the third-highest proportion in the country behind Arizona and New Hampshire. The University of Louisiana at Monroe is the clearest example: all three of its programs are online, including a military history master’s. For a state with this little private provision and this much rural geography, that matters more than it would elsewhere.

Graduate study concentrates hard. Only LSU and Tulane teach the subject at all three levels, and between them they hold all four of the state’s doctorates. What those doctorates are is more interesting than the count.

LSU’s history Ph.D. lists six named fields and four of them are British or European, which is an unusual balance anywhere and a striking one at a southern land-grant flagship. Separately, LSU awards a Doctor of Design in Cultural Preservation through its College of Art & Design, with a specialization in Museum and Archival Studies. It is not a history doctorate and should not be mistaken for one, but for a student aiming at senior museum or archival work it is a genuinely unusual credential, and students on the archival track also pick up a graduate certificate in archival studies.

Tulane’s doctorate combines art history and Latin American studies into one field, which is a coherent thing to do in New Orleans and rare outside it.

Transfer is clean. The Louisiana Transfer Degree, available as an AA/LT or AS/LT, is 39 hours of general education plus 21 hours of further coursework. Arrive at a four-year Louisiana public university holding one and your general education requirements are met and you are granted junior standing. Details are with the Louisiana Board of Regents.

Becoming a History Teacher in Louisiana

Louisiana certifies Social Studies for grades 6 through 12, so the credential covers geography, civics, and economics alongside the historical content.

The testing sequence has three parts: the Praxis Core, the Principles of Learning and Teaching for grades 7-12, test code 5624, and the subject assessment. For social studies that subject test is Social Studies: Content and Interpretation, code 5086, and Louisiana requires a score of 153.

That is worth noting because the same exam is used in several other states at different cut scores, so a score that passes elsewhere may not pass here, and vice versa. Check the number for the state you actually intend to teach in instead of assuming the test result travels.

Confirm current requirements with Teach Louisiana before choosing a program, since the required exams and scores are revised periodically.

History Careers in Louisiana

History Careers in Louisiana

Occupation	Louisiana jobs	Louisiana median	vs. U.S. median
Secondary school teachers	15,210	$59,850	-17%
Postsecondary history teachers	120	$78,990	-6%
Curators	160	$60,080	-5%
Archivists	50	$59,070	-8%
Historians	60	$80,620	+5%

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

Historians are the only occupation here paying above the national median, at 5% above across 60 positions. Everything else trails, and secondary school teaching trails furthest at 17% below national across 15,210 jobs, which is where nearly all the employment sits.

The middle of the table is close to national rather than far from it. Curators at 5% below and postsecondary history teaching at 6% below are modest gaps, and archivists at 8% below are not far off either. Louisiana is not a badly paid state for the specialist roles so much as a thin one: 160 curator and 50 archivist positions in total.

Set against tuition that runs from $7,050 to $9,190 across the entire public sector, the calculation for an in-state student is straightforward. The degree is inexpensive, the classroom market is large but poorly paid, and the specialist market pays close to national on very small numbers.

History Resources in Louisiana

• The Historic New Orleans Collection, whose Williams Research Center sits on Chartres Street in the French Quarter. It is an independent research institution, not a city museum, and its holdings run back into the French and Spanish colonial period, including land survey records from the eighteenth century. For anyone working on Louisiana before statehood it is the first place to go.
• Louisiana State Archives, on Essen Lane in Baton Rouge, under the Secretary of State. The official repository for state government records, and the counterpart to the New Orleans collection: one holds the state’s administrative record, the other its colonial and cultural one.

Frequently Asked Questions