Ranked #19 in popularity, public administration is one of the most sought-after master's degree programs in the nation. This makes choosing the right school a hard decision.
For its 2024 ranking, College Factual looked at 2 schools in West Virginia to determine which ones were the best for public administration students pursuing a master's degree. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 132 master's degrees in public administration during the 2020-2021 academic year.
To determine the overall quality of a graduate school, one factor we look at is the average early-career salary of those receiving their master's degree from the school. This is because one of the main reasons people pursue their master's degree is to enable themselves to find better-paying positions.
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 public administration students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - How many other public administration 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 easy is it for public administration 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 public administration related body.
Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for public administration students working on their master's degree.
When choosing the right school for you, it's important to arm yourself with all the facts you can. To that end, we've created a number of major-specific rankings, including this Best Public Administration Master's Degree Schools in West Virginia list to help you make the college decision.
Best Schools for Master’s Students to Study Public Administration in West Virginia
The following list ranks the best colleges and universities for pursuing a master's degree in public administration.
Top West Virginia Schools for a Master's in Public Admin
It's difficult to beat American Public University System if you wish to pursue a master's degree in public administration. Located in the fringe town of Charles Town, American Military University is a private for-profit university with a fairly large student population.
Master's recipients from the public administration program at American Public University System make $12,018 more than the average college grad in this field shortly after graduation.
It's hard to beat West Virginia University if you want to pursue a master's degree in public administration. Located in the city of Morgantown, WVU is a public university with a very large student population.
Students who graduate with their master's from the public admin program report average early career wages of $40,377.
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).
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