How DSW and PhD Programs Are Verified and Ranked

Which Schools Were Checked

The starting list combined three sources: every institution that reported doctoral completions in social work (CIP code 44.0701) to the U.S. Department of Education's IPEDS survey for 2022-23, every practice doctorate in the CSWE accredited program directory (accredited, in candidacy or in pre-candidacy), and the doctoral programs found while researching master's programs for our sister site. 4 of those schools no longer offer a social work doctorate and 1 has closed; they are left off the site.

What Counts as a Program

A program is a doctoral path a student applies to: an online DSW and an on-campus DSW count separately when the school runs them separately, with their own page, tuition or start dates. The site covers the Doctor of Social Work, PhDs in social work and social welfare, and practice doctorates under other names, such as USC's Doctor of Social Innovation. Doctorates in counseling, psychology, public health or human services are left out.

Program Facts

Format, residencies, part-time options, credits, length, the final project, focus areas, admission requirements (degree, years of post-MSW practice, license and test policy), start terms, funding and published tuition come from the school's own program, catalog, admissions, funding and tuition pages. Residency requirements are shown in the school's words. Tuition is shown with its basis (per credit, per term, per year or total) and year; 9 figures are school-wide graduate rates and are labeled that way. A detail is left out when the school's pages don't state it.

6 programs say admission is paused; they keep their pages, with the school's wording shown prominently, and are left out of every ranking and tool result. 3 programs list a first cohort that hasn't started yet and carry a banner saying so.

CSWE Status

CSWE accredits practice doctorates (DSW programs), not PhDs, so PhD programs carry no CSWE status. Status comes only from CSWE's practice doctorate directory, captured September 30, 2026: on this site, 4 DSW programs are accredited, 9 are in candidacy and 2 are in pre-candidacy. Accredited programs get a solid pill; candidacy is outlined and pre-candidacy dashed, and neither is ever called accredited. A school's own claim never overrides CSWE's directory.

Estimated Tuition and Funding

Where a school publishes both a per-credit rate for the program and the credits it requires, the site multiplies the two and labels the result "estimated tuition"; where it publishes a program total, that total is used. 24 programs publish enough for an estimate. It is tuition only, before fees, books, residency travel and living costs, and at public schools it is usually the resident rate. Per-term and per-year prices and school-wide graduate rates are never turned into an estimate.

A PhD is marked fully funded only when its own pages say admitted students receive tuition coverage plus a stipend or assistantship (46 programs). 6 of them publish a stipend amount, which the funded PhD list ranks.

How the Ranked Lists Work

Every ranked list states its measure above the list, and the order follows that measure alone. Cost rankings order programs by estimated tuition, lowest first, one program per school. Stipend rankings order funded PhDs by the stipend each publishes, highest first. Size rankings order schools by the doctoral degrees in social work they awarded in 2022-23 (IPEDS; 83 schools on this site reported them), which describes how established a program is, not its quality. Paused and not-yet-started programs are left out of rankings, and advertising never affects one.

Guides and Program-List Pages

Guides and program-list pages are written from the site's verified program records plus facts read on official pages (CSWE, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Federal Student Aid and schools' own sites). Each outside fact is recorded with the page it came from and the date it was checked, and automated checks confirm that every dollar figure and count traces to those records.

Tools

The DSW or PhD chooser scores six answers and explains each point with counts from the program records. The program matcher filters and scores the records against your answers. The DSW cost and loan calculator applies the federal Direct Unsubsidized Loan rules for loans first disbursed from July 1, 2026 ($20,500 a year, $100,000 in total, 8.07% interest), estimates interest while you're in school as simple interest and compares the payment with BLS median pay. All three run in your browser; nothing you enter is sent to the site.

Pay Data

Pay figures are national medians for the occupations doctorate holders work in, such as postsecondary social work teachers and social and community service managers, from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. BLS doesn't report pay by degree, so the figures describe the occupation, not DSW or PhD graduates as a group.

City Pages

34 city pages carry over from the previous version of this site because they had visitors from Bing. Each lists verified programs near the city plus online options. They are marked so Google doesn't index them and appear only in the sitemap submitted to Bing.

Who Checks the Site and How Often

The site is researched and edited by Taylor Rupe. Program facts are reviewed at least every six months, and CSWE status is recaptured from CSWE's directory before each review. Sponsored listings are supplied by advertisers and never affect which programs appear or how they rank. To report an error, use the contact form.