Natural Resources Conservation is above average in terms of popularity with it being the #56 most popular master's degree program in the country. So, you have a fair amount of options to choose from when looking for a school.
College Factual looked at 3 colleges and universities when compiling its 2025 Best Natural Resources Conservation Master's Degree Schools in Colorado ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 238 master's degrees in natural resources conservation during the 2022-2023 academic year.
Choosing a Great Natural Resources Conservation School for Your Master's Degree
The conservation 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. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
Overall Quality Is a Must
A school that excels in educating for a particular major and degree level must be a great school overall as well. To make it into this list a school must rank well in our overall Best Colleges for a Master's Degree ranking. This ranking considered factors such as graduation rates, overall graduate earnings and other educational resources to identify great colleges and universities.
Average Early-Career Salaries
Average early-career salary of those graduating with their master's degree is one indicator we use in our analysis to find the schools that offer the highest-quality education. After all, your master's degree won't mean much if it doesn't help you find a job that will help you earn a living.
Other Factors We Consider
In addition to the above, you should consider some of the following factors:
Major Focus - How many resources a school devotes to natural resources conservation students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - How many other natural resources conservation students want to attend this school to pursue a master's degree.
Educational Resources - The amount of money and other resources allocated to students while they are pursuing their degree. These resources include such things as number of students per instructor and education expenditures per student.
Student Debt - How much debt natural resources conservation students go into to obtain their master's degree and how well they are able to pay back that debt.
Accreditation - Whether a school is regionally accredited and/or accredited by a recognized natural resources conservation related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for natural resources conservation students working on their master's degree.
More Ways to Rank Natural Resources Conservation Schools
The conservation school you choose to invest your time and money in matters. To help you make the decision that is right for you, we've developed a number of major-specific rankings, including this list of the Best Natural Resources Conservation Master's Degree Schools in Colorado.
Best Schools for Master’s Students to Study Natural Resources Conservation in Colorado
The following list ranks the best colleges and universities for pursuing a master's degree in natural resources conservation.
Top Colorado Schools for a Master's in Conservation
Every student pursuing a degree in a master's degree in natural resources conservation has to check out University of Colorado Boulder. CU - Boulder is a fairly large public university located in the city of Boulder.
Those natural resources conservation students who get their master's degree from University of Colorado Boulder receive $6,287 more than the average conservation grad.
Any student who is interested in a master's degree in natural resources conservation needs to check out Colorado State University - Fort Collins. Colorado State is a fairly large public university located in the medium-sized city of Fort Collins.
Those natural resources conservation students who get their master's degree from Colorado State University - Fort Collins make $7,060 more than the typical conservation student.
It is hard to beat Western Colorado University if you wish to pursue a master's degree in natural resources conservation. Western is a small public university located in the remote town of Gunnison.
Students who graduate with their master's from the conservation program state that they receive average early career wages of $37,354.
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).
The conservation 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. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
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