2024 Best Public Administration Master's Degree Schools in the Southwest Region
If you pursue a master's degree in
public administration, you won't be alone. The field of study is the #19 most popular program in the country. This means there are lots of options to choose from when you decide to get your degree.
For its 2024 ranking, College Factual looked at 26 schools in the Southwest Region to determine which ones were the best for public administration students pursuing a master's degree. Combined, these schools handed out 1,347 master's degrees in public administration to qualified students.
What's on this page: * Our Methodology
Choosing a Great Public Administration School for Your Master's Degree
The public admin 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 account for this we include a college's overall Best Colleges for a Master's Degree ranking which itself looks at a combination of different 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 public administration students vs. other majors.
- Major Demand - The number of public administration students who choose to seek a master's degree at the school.
- 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 much debt public administration 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 public administration related body.
Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for public administration students working on their master's degree.
More Ways to Rank Public Administration Schools
The public admin 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 Public Administration Master's Degree Schools in the Southwest Region.
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