Religious Studies at Harvard University

What traits are you looking for in a religion school? To help you decide if Harvard University is right for you, we've gathered the following information about the school's religion program.

Harvard is located in Cambridge, Massachusetts and approximately 30,391 students attend the school each year. Of the 1,618 students who graduated with a bachelor’s degree from Harvard University in 2021, 6 of them were religious studies majors.

Want to know more about the career opportunities in this field? Check out the Careers in Religious Studies section at the bottom of this page.

Harvard Religious Studies Degrees Available

• Bachelor’s Degree in Religion
• Master’s Degree in Religion
• Doctorate Degree in Religion

Online Classes Are Available at Harvard

If you are a working student or have a busy schedule, you may want to consider taking online classes. While these classes used to be mostly populated by returning adults, more and more traditional students are turning to this option.

Harvard does offer online education options in religion for the following degree levels for those interested in distance learning:

Harvard Religious Studies Rankings

The following rankings from College Factual show how the religion progam at Harvard compares to programs at other colleges and universities.

Note: Rankings don't always give a complete picture of a school's strengths and weaknesses, so it's a good idea to extend your research and also look at other factors when trying to decide if the school is right for you.

Bachelor’s Degree Overall Quality & Other Notable Rankings

The religion major at Harvard is not ranked on College Factual’s Best Colleges and Universities for Religious Studies. This could be for a number of reasons, such as not having enough data on the major or school to make an accurate assessment of its quality.

Ranking Type	Rank
Most Focused Religious Studies Graduate Certificate Schools	10

In 2021, 14 students received their master’s degree in religion from Harvard. This makes it the #20 most popular school for religion master’s degree candidates in the country.

There were 7 students who received their doctoral degrees in religion, making the school the #9 most popular school in the United States for this category of students.

Religion Student Demographics at Harvard

Take a look at the following statistics related to the make-up of the religion majors at Harvard University.

Harvard Religious Studies Bachelor’s Program

In the 2020-2021 academic year, 6 students earned a bachelor's degree in religion from Harvard. About 50% of these graduates were women and the other 50% were men. The typical religion bachelor's degree program is made up of only 34% women. So female students are more repesented at Harvard since its program graduates 16% more women than average.

Prospective students may be interested in knowing that this school graduates 54% more racial-ethnic minorities in its religion bachelor's program than the national average.*

The following table and chart show the race/ethnicity for students who recently graduated from Harvard University with a bachelor's in religion.

Race/Ethnicity	Number of Students
Asian	3
Black or African American	0
Hispanic or Latino	1
White	1
International Students	1
Other Races/Ethnicities	0

Harvard Religious Studies Master’s Program

Of the 14 religion students who graduated with a master's degree in 2020-2021 from Harvard, about 43% were men and 57% were women.

In the religion master's program at this school, racial-ethnic minorities make up 50% of degree recipients. That is 37% better than the national average.*

The following table and chart show the race/ethnicity for students who recently graduated from Harvard University with a master's in religion.

Race/Ethnicity	Number of Students
Asian	3
Black or African American	3
Hispanic or Latino	0
White	6
International Students	0
Other Races/Ethnicities	2

Harvard also has a doctoral program available in religion. In 2021, 7 students graduated with a doctor's degree in this field.

Related Majors

• General Philosophy & Religious Studies
• Philosophy

Careers That Religion Grads May Go Into

A degree in religion can lead to the following careers. Since job numbers and average salaries can vary by geographic location, we have only included the numbers for MA, the home state for Harvard University.

Occupation	Jobs in MA	Average Salary in MA
Philosophy and Religion Professors	700	$84,290
Area, Ethnic, and Cultural Studies Professors	470	$98,380

References

*The racial-ethnic minorities count is calculated by taking the total number of students and subtracting white students, international students, and students whose race/ethnicity was unknown. This number is then divided by the total number of students at the school to obtain the racial-ethnic minorities percentage.

• College Factual
• National Center for Education Statistics
• O*NET Online
• Image Credit: By Elisa.rolle under License

More about our data sources and methodologies.