History Degrees in Nevada

Nevada became a state on October 31, 1864, without the population the constitution normally required. The Comstock Lode had been pouring silver out of the ground near Virginia City since 1859, the Union needed the money and the vote, and Congress admitted Nevada anyway. Between 1859 and 1919 those mines produced more than $700 million in gold and silver, and a young Samuel Clemens started writing for the Virginia City newspaper in the middle of it. The state that boom built now teaches the subject at a handful of universities, every one of them public.

Nevada has 3 colleges and universities offering history degrees, with 13 programs between them: 9 bachelor’s degrees, 2 master’s degrees, and 2 doctorates.

Every one of them is public. Nevada is one of only five states in the country where no private college offers a history degree at all.

History Schools in Nevada

With only three schools offering the subject, we list all of them instead of rank a top few. 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%). Two of these three are R1 research universities, which is unusual for a state this size.

University of Nevada, Reno

Reno carries 8 of Nevada’s 13 history programs and is the only school in the state that names its undergraduate tracks. Alongside a general history bachelor’s it offers separate degrees in public history, global history, and race and ethnicity, plus a combined history and secondary education degree for students heading into classrooms. A master’s and doctorate sit on top.

• History programs: 8
• Levels offered: Bachelor’s, master’s, doctoral
• Carnegie classification: R1, very high research activity
• In-state tuition and fees: $9,578
• Four-year completion rate: 61%

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

UNLV runs a leaner catalog covering the same ground: bachelor’s degrees in history and art history, then a history master’s and Ph.D. It is the state’s only art history degree, and its location gives students access to the archival collections documenting southern Nevada’s twentieth-century growth.

• History programs: 4
• Levels offered: Bachelor’s, master’s, doctoral
• Carnegie classification: R1, very high research activity
• In-state tuition and fees: $9,748
• Four-year completion rate: 51%

Nevada State University

Nevada State offers a single B.A. in History at $6,765 a year, well below Reno at $9,578 and Las Vegas at $9,748. It is a baccalaureate institution, not a research university, so the degree is a teaching-focused undergraduate program rather than a route into graduate study on the same campus.

• History programs: 1
• Levels offered: Bachelor’s
• Carnegie classification: Baccalaureate college, diverse fields
• In-state tuition and fees: $6,765
• Four-year completion rate: 34%

Both Reno and Las Vegas hold R1 classification and a history doctorate, so a student can go from a Nevada bachelor’s to a Nevada Ph.D. at either end of the state.

History Education in Nevada

Nevada’s entire history offering runs through the Nevada System of Higher Education. All 13 programs sit at public institutions, and no private college in the state offers the subject. Alaska, Delaware, New Mexico, and Wyoming are the only other states where that is true.

That concentration cuts both ways. The choice is narrow, but the pricing is uniform and low. History degrees in Nevada run from $6,765 to $9,748 a year in tuition and fees, an unusually narrow band, and the two research universities are priced within a few hundred dollars of each other.

Our listings show no distance option at any of the three Nevada schools, at any level. For a state where the two main campuses sit at opposite ends of a large and sparsely populated territory, that matters, and anyone in the rural counties who cannot relocate will want to look at out-of-state options. Our guide to online history degrees covers those.

Unlike Ohio, Missouri, or Kansas, Nevada has no single named statewide general education transfer block. Transfer between the state’s public institutions runs through system articulation, not a guaranteed credit package, so check your specific courses with the receiving campus instead of assuming a completed associate degree carries across whole.

Becoming a History Teacher in Nevada

Nevada issues a Secondary License covering grades 7 through 12, and applicants need at least one major field of endorsement, which for history means social studies.

The testing requirement is heavier than most states. Nevada wants the full Praxis Core Academic Skills for Educators series, which is three separate tests in reading, writing, and mathematics, plus the Principles of Learning and Teaching pedagogy exam for grades 7 to 12, plus the subject content assessment.

One detail catches career changers in particular. Praxis scores must have been earned within the ten years before you apply for licensure. If you took the tests during an education degree a decade ago and are only now applying, you may need to sit them again.

The University of Nevada, Reno’s combined history and secondary education bachelor’s is built around this pathway, which makes it the most direct route in the state.

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

History Careers in Nevada

History Careers in Nevada

Occupation	Nevada jobs	Nevada median	vs. U.S. median
Secondary school teachers	8,920	$65,520	-9%
Curators	100	$69,900	+10%
Postsecondary history teachers	80	$81,930	-2%
Historians	not published	$80,140	+4%

Employment and wage data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, 2025. Nevada’s archivist figures were not published, and the employment count for historians was withheld though the wage was reported.

Nevada reverses the usual pattern. Curators earn 10% above the national median and historians 4% above, while secondary school teachers sit 9% below. In most states the specialist roles are the ones that lag. Here it is the classroom.

The counts stay small, as they do everywhere outside the largest states. One hundred curator positions and 80 postsecondary history teaching jobs, against 8,920 secondary school teaching posts. Nevada pays comparatively well for museum work and has relatively little of it.

History Resources in Nevada

• Nevada Historical Society, founded 1904 and the oldest museum in the state, on North Virginia Street in Reno. Note that it is closed for renovation through December 2026, with programming continuing at other Reno venues in the meantime, so check before planning research there.
• Nevada State Library, Archives and Public Records, the official repository for state government records and the coordinating body for historical records organizations across Nevada.

Frequently Asked Questions