History Degrees in Ohio

In September 2023, the Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks became Ohio’s first UNESCO World Heritage Site and only the twenty-fifth in the United States. They are eight monumental earthen enclosures built along the Ohio River’s tributaries between 2,000 and 1,600 years ago, at the center of a trade and interaction network that reached across the continent. Ohio’s history runs a good deal deeper than the eight presidents it likes to claim. So does its teaching of the subject, which reaches the doctorate at more universities than almost any state.

Ohio has 59 colleges and universities offering history degrees, with 110 programs among them: 81 bachelor’s degrees, 21 master’s degrees, and 8 doctorates.

Seven schools carry history from bachelor’s through doctorate: Ohio State, Ohio University, Cincinnati, Kent State, Case Western Reserve, Toledo, and Akron. Only four states in the country have more.

Top History Schools in Ohio

As with every state we cover, we scored all 59 Ohio schools on four factors: history degree offerings and program variety (40%), student outcomes (25%), reputation (20%), and affordability (15%). Ohio State posts the strongest student outcomes on this list at an 88% four-year completion rate, while Toledo and Akron carry the best affordability scores among the schools that made it. Here are Ohio’s best history degrees.

Most Affordable History Degrees in Ohio

Annual in-state tuition and fees. Ohio’s regional campus networks charge a single system rate, which is why five Ohio University branches and three Ohio State branches appear as grouped entries.

History Education in Ohio

Ohio is one of the five deepest states in the country for history, and the depth is unusual as well as the breadth. Seven schools carry the subject from bachelor’s through doctorate, against three in Indiana and Missouri and two in South Carolina. Eight doctoral programs sit inside that group.

Ohio has 36 private nonprofit colleges offering history against 23 public ones, yet the publics carry more programs, 60 against 50. Six of the state’s eight doctorates sit at public universities, and the remaining two are both at Case Western Reserve.

Art history is unusually strong here. Twenty of Ohio’s 110 history programs carry an art history designation, a total behind only New York, California, and Pennsylvania and level with Texas, and Case Western holds the state’s only art history doctorate.

Transfer is well defined. Ohio Transfer 36 guarantees that a minimum of 36 semester hours of general education transfers among all Ohio public institutions, covering English, mathematics, arts and humanities, social and behavioral sciences, and natural sciences. It was renamed from the Ohio Transfer Module in May 2021, so older advising material may still use the previous name.

Online study is the weak spot in an otherwise deep state. Our directory finds only 5 online history programs across all 59 schools, which is fewer than Missouri manages with half the institutions. Our guide to online history degrees covers the national options.

Becoming a History Teacher in Ohio

Ohio issues an Adolescence to Young Adult license covering grades 7 through 12, and history sits inside a broader field the state calls Integrated Social Studies.

Certification runs through the Ohio Assessments for Educators. The Integrated Social Studies exam, code 025, covers historical methodology, world history, United States history and government, geography, human cultures, and economics, so the license is considerably wider than history alone.

One feature of Ohio’s system catches people out. You must pass the OAE content exam before you are eligible to student teach, not after. In most states the content exam comes at the end of the preparation program. In Ohio it gates entry to the classroom placement, which means planning your test date a full term earlier than you might expect.

Confirm the current requirements with the Ohio State Board of Education before choosing a program.

History Careers in Ohio

Employment and wage data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, 2025. Ohio’s employment count for historians was not published, though the wage figure was.

Ohio sits close to national pay across most of this work. Secondary school teaching runs 9% above the national median, curators are within a rounding error of it, and postsecondary teaching is 3% below. Only archivists at 9% below and historians at 21% below fall meaningfully short.

The scale is what distinguishes Ohio. There are 49,540 secondary school teaching positions in the state and 370 curator jobs, both among the largest counts we have seen. Ohio does not pay a premium for history work, but there is a great deal of it.

History Resources in Ohio

• Ohio Academy of History, founded 1932 and the professional society for historians working or living in Ohio. It runs a spring research conference at a different institution each year and issues awards for publication, teaching, service, dissertations, and public history, several of which are open to students.
• Ohio History Connection, founded 1885 as the Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society. It doubles as the State Archives, holding 70,000 cubic feet of records at its Columbus archives and library, and it manages the Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks World Heritage site.

Frequently Asked Questions