2024 Best Operations Research Master's Degree Schools

Operations Research is above average in terms of popularity with it being the #117 most popular master's degree program in the country. As a result, there are many college that offer the degree, making your choice of school a hard one.

For its 2024 ranking, College Factual looked at 20 schools in the United States to determine which ones were the best for operations research students pursuing a master's degree. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 957 master's degrees in operations research during the 2020-2021 academic year.

What's on this page: * Our Methodology

• Best Master’s Degree Schools List

Choosing a Great Operations Research School for Your Master's Degree

The operations research master's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. This section explores some of the factors we include in our ranking and how much they vary depending on the school you select. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.

A Great Overall School

The overall quality of a master's degree school is important to ensure a good education, not just how well they do in a particular major. To take this into account we include a school's overall Best Colleges for a Master's Degree ranking which itself looks at a combination of various factors like degree completion, educational resources, student body caliber and post-graduation earnings for the school as a whole.

Early-Career Earnings

One measure we use to determine the quality of a school is to look at the average salary of master's graduates during the early years of their career. That is, everyone wants their master's degree to be worth something, and salaries are one measure of determining that.

Other Factors We Consider

The metrics below are just some of the other metrics that we use to determine our rankings.

• Major Focus - How much a school focuses on operations research students vs. other majors.
• Major Demand - How many other operations research students want to attend this school to pursue a master's degree.
• Educational Resources - How many resources are allocated to students. These resources may include educational expenditures per student, number of students per instructor, and graduation rate among other things.
• Student Debt - How easy is it for operations research to pay back their student loans after receiving their master's degree.
• Accreditation - Whether a school is regionally accredited and/or accredited by a recognized operations research related body.

Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for operations research students working on their master's degree.

One Size Does Not Fit All

Since the program you select can have a significant impact on your future, we've developed a number of rankings, including this Best Operations Research Master's Degree Schools list, to help you choose the best school for you.

Best Schools for Master’s Students to Study Operations Research in the United States

Below you'll see a list of the best colleges and universities for pursuing a master's degree in operations research.

10 Top Schools for a Master's in Operations Research

1

Columbia University in the City of New York
New York, NY

320 Annual Graduates

$111,312 Median Starting Salary

Columbia University in the City of New York is one of the finest schools in the United States for getting a master's degree in operations research. Columbia is a very large private not-for-profit university located in the city of New York.

Master's recipients from the operations research program at Columbia University in the City of New York earn $5,123 above the average college graduate with the same degree when they enter the workforce.

More information about a master’s in operations research from Columbia University in the City of New York

2

Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, MA

11 Annual Graduates

Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a good decision for students interested in a master's degree in operations research. MIT is a large private not-for-profit school located in the midsize city of Cambridge.More information about a master’s in operations research from Massachusetts Institute of Technology

3

University of California - Berkeley
Berkeley, CA

111 Annual Graduates

University of California - Berkeley is a good decision for individuals interested in a master's degree in operations research. Located in the midsize city of Berkeley, UC Berkeley is a public university with a very large student population.More information about a master’s in operations research from University of California - Berkeley

4

Rice University
Houston, TX

12 Annual Graduates

Rice University is one of the finest schools in the United States for getting a master's degree in operations research. Located in the large city of Houston, Rice is a private not-for-profit university with a medium-sized student population.More information about a master’s in operations research from Rice University

5

Princeton University
Princeton, NJ

13 Annual Graduates

Located in the city of Princeton, Princeton is a private not-for-profit university with a medium-sized student population.More information about a master’s in operations research from Princeton University

6

Cornell University
Ithaca, NY

138 Annual Graduates

$101,067 Median Starting Salary

Located in the city of Ithaca, Cornell is a private not-for-profit university with a fairly large student population.

Master's graduates who receive their degree from the operations research program earn an average of $101,067 for their early career.

More information about a master’s in operations research from Cornell University

7

Northwestern University
Evanston, IL

Located in the city of Evanston, Northwestern is a private not-for-profit university with a very large student population.More information about a master’s in operations research from Northwestern University

8

Georgia Institute of Technology - Main Campus
Atlanta, GA

37 Annual Graduates

Georgia Tech is a very large public school located in the large city of Atlanta.More information about a master’s in operations research from Georgia Institute of Technology - Main Campus

9

Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA

5 Annual Graduates

Carnegie Mellon is a fairly large private not-for-profit university located in the city of Pittsburgh.More information about a master’s in operations research from Carnegie Mellon University

10

Case Western Reserve University
Cleveland, OH

23 Annual Graduates

Located in the large city of Cleveland, Case Western is a private not-for-profit university with a fairly large student population.More information about a master’s in operations research from Case Western Reserve University

Operations Research by Region

View the Best Operations Research Master's Degree Schools for a specific region near you.

Region
Southeast
New England
Rocky Mountains
Plains States
Middle Atlantic
Far Western US
Southwest
Other U.S. Territories
Great Lakes

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Operations Research Related Rankings by Major

Operations Research is one of 41 different types of Engineering programs to choose from.

Operations Research Focus Areas

Major	Annual Graduates
General Operations Research	957

Majors Similar to Operations Research

Related Major	Annual Graduates
Electrical Engineering	8,658
Mechanical Engineering	7,218
Computer Engineering	5,020
Civil Engineering	4,884
Biomedical Engineering	3,089
General Engineering	2,969
Industrial Engineering	2,483
Systems Engineering	2,186
Aerospace & Aeronautical Engineering	1,880
Chemical Engineering	1,558

Notes and References

• The bars on the spread charts above show the distribution of the schools on this list +/- one standard deviation from the mean.
• The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), a branch of the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) serves as the core of the rest of our data about colleges.
• Some other college data, including much of the graduate earnings data, comes from the U.S. Department of Education’s (College Scorecard). More about our data sources and methodologies.