You want to help. To solve problems, build futures, and empower people around you.
With your degree, you’ll make a real difference—supporting vulnerable individuals, strengthening communities, and shaping policies that create lasting change. You’ll advocate, care, and lead in countless settings, promoting equity, justice, and healthier lives wherever you go.
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Social work is a professional degree
In the School of Social Work, you'll do much more than simply train for jobs in the human-services sector. You'll learn to embody the values and ethical foundations of the social work profession--and to put your knowledge to work empowering people to live their fullest lives.
Our program is accredited by the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE). In addition to providing grades on papers and exams, we are required to measure and report student learning outcomes to CSWE. All social work students are assessed on social work professional core competencies. These holistic competencies reflect the dimensions (knowledge, values, skills, and cognitive & affective processes) of social work practice that all social workers are expected to master during their professional training.
Why study social work at Iowa?
Graduates become culturally competent scholars and practitioners who are committed to social justice and social work values and ethics.
Studying social work at the University of Iowa will give you direct exposure to evidence-based knowledge, practice, and policy--particularly related to children, families, and older adults. You'll benefit from both strenghs-based perspectives and systems perspectives.
Our graduates are committed to social justice and social work values and ethics, and are prepared to serve in and have a positive impact on a broad range of family-centered and community-based practice settings throughout the State of Iowa and beyond.
Most of our BA graduates go on to earn a master's degree, enabling them to become mental health therapists or college-level educators. We have the top-ranked MSW program in the state--including an online option and satellite campuses in Des Moines and Sioux City. The University of Iowa's focus on research and world-class expertise, we offer the only PhD in social work degree in the state of Iowa.
Learn more about studying social work at Iowa.