History Degrees in Montana

From the 1870s until 1991 the site of the battle on the Little Bighorn was officially called Custer Battlefield. In December 1991 Congress renamed it Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument, and the same law required that an Indian Memorial be built, on the stated grounds that nothing there commemorated the Native Americans who died defending their families and their way of living. The design was chosen by national competition and the memorial was dedicated on June 25, 2003. A federal statute changed whose story a place was telling, which is about as concrete a demonstration of historical interpretation as you will find. Montana has very few history departments and more research capacity among them than its size explains.

Montana has 6 colleges and universities offering history degrees, with 13 programs among them: 9 bachelor’s degrees, 2 master’s degrees, and 2 doctorates.

Two of those six schools are R1 research universities holding history doctorates, which is a lot of research capacity for a state this small.

Top History Schools in Montana

With just six history departments statewide, we publish a top three instead of a longer list. Our scoring uses the same four factors as every state we cover: history degree offerings and program variety (40%), student outcomes (25%), reputation (20%), and affordability (15%). Montana State leads on depth with 5 programs to Montana’s 3. Outcomes go to Montana State at 57%. Reputation rests on the two R1 universities. Affordability separates Montana-Western at $6,670 from the two research campuses, which sit within $100 of each other. Here are Montana’s best history degrees.

Most Affordable History Degrees in Montana

Most affordable history degrees in Montana

Rank	School	Program	Tuition per year
1	The University of Montana-Western	B.A. in Modern History	$6,670
2	Montana State University Billings	Bachelor's in History	$7,280
3	Montana State University	B.A. in History	$8,460
4	The University of Montana	B.A. in History	$8,552
5	University of Providence	B.A. in History	$30,448
6	Carroll College	B.A. in History	$41,484

Annual in-state tuition and fees. Six entries, not ten, because six is every school in Montana that teaches the subject. The four public universities top out at $8,552, and then the list jumps to $30,448.

History Education in Montana

Montana’s history offering is small, cheap, and unexpectedly research-heavy. Two of its six schools are R1 universities holding history doctorates, which is more doctoral capacity than several states with three times the programs. Montana State and the University of Montana are the only institutions teaching the subject at all three levels, and they sit within $100 of each other on price.

Below them the picture thins quickly. The four public universities all charge $8,552 or less and take the first four places on the cost list. The cheapest private college charges $30,448, more than three times the most expensive public option, with nothing in between. In practice the choice in Montana is a public one.

The most distinctive program in the state is Montana State’s SETS track, which stands for Science, the Environment, Technology, and Society. Students select a focus from options that include history of science and technology and environmental history, which makes it a genuine version of a field that most universities treat as a graduate research interest instead of an undergraduate path. Only a small national group offers anything comparable, and Montana State is on that list alongside Wisconsin, Georgia Tech, Oregon State, Pittsburgh, Tennessee, and Oklahoma.

Two smaller things are worth noticing. Montana State also awards a Bachelor’s in Teaching with History, so the classroom route is built into a history degree instead of requiring a separate education major. And Montana-Western’s B.A. in Modern History is a rare title in American higher education, signalling a department oriented to the recent past.

Montana has no online history programs in our listings, which puts it among a small group of states offering no distance route at all. Anyone who needs to study remotely will be enrolling elsewhere, and our guide to online history degrees covers those options.

Transfer runs on the MUS Core, 30 lower-division credits across six categories, portable across Montana University System campuses. The provision worth knowing is what happens if you move before finishing: a student who has completed at least 20 of the 30 credits can still use the Core to transfer, then decide with an adviser whether to complete the remainder at the new campus or roll those 20 credits into that campus’s own general education program. Most states protect a completed block and say nothing about partial progress. Montana handles it explicitly. Details are at the Montana University System.

Becoming a History Teacher in Montana

Montana licenses educators through the Office of Public Instruction, and secondary candidates need a state-approved preparation program alongside the relevant content endorsement.

The specific endorsement name and required assessment are the sort of detail that changes without much notice, and we were not able to confirm Montana’s current requirements from a primary source, so treat this section as a pointer rather than an authority and check with OPI directly.

What is worth knowing when choosing a degree is that Montana State offers a Bachelor’s in Teaching with History, which folds the classroom preparation into the history major instead of running it alongside as a separate program. For a state with six history departments in total, having one of them built for teaching is useful.

Confirm current requirements with the Montana Office of Public Instruction before choosing a program.

History Careers in Montana

History Careers in Montana

Occupation	Montana jobs	Montana median	vs. U.S. median
Secondary school teachers	3,670	$60,990	-15%
Postsecondary history teachers	40	$75,770	-10%
Curators	100	$54,460	-14%
Archivists	not published	not published	n/a
Historians	not published	not published	n/a

Employment and wage data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, 2025. Montana’s archivist and historian figures were withheld entirely, which is common where the sample is too small to publish.

Three of the five rows are published and all three sit below the national median, though none by a dramatic margin. Postsecondary history teaching comes closest at 10% below, curators are 14% below, and secondary school teaching 15% below.

The curator figure is the one worth pausing on. Montana supports 100 curator positions, which is a substantial number for a state with this population, and reflects a landscape of historic sites, tribal museums, and county collections instead of a few large urban institutions. The pay is 14% under national, but the count suggests the work exists.

Secondary school teaching carries the volume at 3,670 positions. Set against public tuition that tops out at $8,552, Montana is an inexpensive place to earn the degree, including at doctoral level, and a moderately below-average place to be paid for it.

History Resources in Montana

• Montana Historical Society, Helena. Formed in February 1865 at Bannack and moved to Helena in 1874, it is one of the oldest institutions of its kind west of the Mississippi River. It holds the state’s principal historical collections and runs the state museum.
• Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument, Crow Agency. Beyond the battlefield itself, the site is worth visiting for the interpretive history described at the top of this page: the 1991 renaming and the Indian Memorial dedicated in 2003 are part of what is on display there now.

Frequently Asked Questions