120 Best Essay Topics for US Students

The essay is the basic requirement in all colleges and universities. So, for freshmen, learning to write an essay is the most fundamental skill. It will get you through your entire college years, and even your post-graduate studies. As a freshman in college, you are probably being drilled by professors to write essays. The first step to writing an essay is by choosing the right topic , from the best essay topics available. The topic that you choose will set the tone of your essay, so it must be chosen carefully. We gathered 120 of the best essay topics for US students. Feel free to explore them.

Are you into history? These best essay topics about American history will intrigue you:

1. What sparked the Boston Tea Party?
2. The best president in American history
3. Causes of the Confederate defeat in the Civil War
4. What changes did the Civil War incite?
5. The relationship of the Founding Fathers with slavery
6. The impact of Frederick Douglass in American history
7. Did Industrialization produce more benefits or problems for the US?
8. The problematic truth about Columbus Day
9. The impact of the trial of John Peter Zenger
10. Why did the Democratic and Republican parties switch platforms?
11. What is the most important amendment in the US Constitution?
12. The brutality that led to the Trail of Tears
13. Women’s Suffrage
14. Obstacles to the building of the Panama Canal
15. Advantages and disadvantages of the Panama Canal
16. The Harlem Renaissance and its significance
17. What was the Treaty of Versailles
18. What led to the Great Depression
19. The Cold War
20. Who is Rosa Parks?

Are you more interested in writing an essay about current politics? Here are 20 best essay topics:

1. The immorality of the practices at the border detention
2. The rise of the alt-right in the US
3. Why do some people choose to immigrate illegally?
4. Impact of Trump’s semantics to the political climate in the US
5. Evaluate Trump’s presidency so far
6. Should the Confederate flag be allowed to be displayed on government property?
7. Is the Electoral College still significant?
8. How can equal pay be achieved?
9. Should gun control be implemented?
10. Why Trump withdrew from the Paris Agreement
11. The potential impact of Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement
12. Changes that need to be made to the US’s current foreign policy
13. Should the Affordable Care Act be replaced?
14. What drove the cost of prescription drugs?
15. Is it fair to tax rich people more than the working and lower class?
16. Should Historically Black Colleges and Universities receive extra federal funding?
17. What is intersectional feminism?
18. Dismantling white feminism
19. Internalized sexism in everyday language
20. Effects of toxic masculinity on men

Are you studying media or journalism? You might be interested in these relevant, best essay topics:

1. Are we living in a post-truth age in the media?
2. How did fake news become prevalent?
3. How social media shapes people’s perception of events
4. The media’s portrayal of terrorism in 2019
5. What are the palpable threats to press freedom?
6. The internet is killing credible journalism
7. Should journalists always be objective?
8. Ethics in the media
9. Reality shows and paparazzi: the distortion of privacy
10. Arthouse vs mainstream media
11. Hype: how does it work?
12. Diversity in mainstream media: is it enough?
13. Methods to combat social media addiction
14. What can the government do to prevent censorship?
15. With the extreme violence in Tarantino’s films, why are his films popular?
16. What is the influence of pop artists on teens today?
17. Should celebrities and actors be politically involved?
18. Why film adaptations of books usually flop?
19. Alfred Hitchcock popularized suspense in film
20. Does sex still sell?

If you are more concerned about society and the marginalized, these best essay topics are more appropriate for you:

1. Cultural appreciation versus cultural appropriation
2. Is homosexuality a choice?
3. Impact of the abolition of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” amendment
4. Same-sex couples should be allowed to adopt
5. Implications of corporate companies using Pride for profit
6. Is it healthy to normalize mental illness?
7. What has changed since the #MeToo Movement?
8. What is the best way to prevent rape?
9. Feminism benefits everyone in society
10. Why the wage gap persists
11. Sex work should be legalized
12. The best solution for mass shootings
13. Is reverse racism true?
14. Should the church and state be separate?
15. Whose philosophy is better, Martin Luther King Jr. or Malcolm X?
16. African-Americans receive harsher penalties than White Americans
17. African-Americans should receive reparations for the history of slavery
18. The American government should give back historic sacred lands to Native-Americans
19. What sparked the Black Lives Matter movement?
20. How has social media changed activism?

If you are adept at literature, go for these best essay topics:

1. Similarities between the society in Orwell’s 1984 and today’s society
2. Character analysis of Poe’s The Tell-tale Heart
3. Themes in Fitzgerald’s This Side of Paradise
4. What does To Kill A Mockingbird say about justice?
5. Analysis of the narrator Humbert Humbert in Lolita
6. The science fiction of Ursula K. Le Guin
7. The political significance of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale
8. Historical analysis of Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses
9. Thematic analysis of Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde 
10. Memory in Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude
11. Feminist criticism of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights
12. Feminist criticism of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
13. The case for Young Adult fiction
14. Existentialism in Camus’ The Stranger
15. Significance of Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth in today’s society
16. Activism in Audre Lorde’s poetry
17. Art for art’s sake in Oscar Wilde’s works
18. Revival of poetry through spoken word
19. The rags to riches evolution of Allen Ginsberg
20. Perception and description in Flaubert’s work

For budding philosophers, there is a variety of philosophy essay topics:

1. Are morals relative to culture?
2. Is it ethical to keep wild animals in zoos and aquariums?
3. Should religious beliefs have an influence on the laws of a country?
4. Is there a “categorical imperative”?
5. The best ethical theory for deciding moral dilemmas
6. Will it ever be possible to achieve a Utopian society?
7. Nature versus nurture
8. Are revolutions necessary?
9. Should rich nations help out the poor nations?
10. Is war ever justified?
11. Should prison be privatized?
12. Which is the more moral option for penalizing heinous crimes: life imprisonment or death penalty?
13. Is it ethical for athletes to use performance-enhancing drugs?
14. What is the best form of government?
15. Is it possible to censor hate speech without violating people’s freedom of speech
16. If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?
17. Why do we need to remember historical tragedies like the Holocaust?
18. Should abortion be legal?
19. Is patriotism a virtue?
20. Are certain people inherently evil?

Essay writing help for students

Writing a swell essay starts with a great topic. Your topic should be something that is not only relevant, but also something that you are interested in. These 120 best essay topics cover a lot of ground for you to choose from. A great essay topic should be complemented by great essay writing—this is something CustomEssayMeister can help with. Aside from tips on how to write a great essay, CustomEssayMeister has expert professional writers who can help you churn out impressive, custom written papers. So when it comes to custom essays, custom term papers, custom research papers and just about anything under the scope of academic writing, come to us.