a master's degree in urban & regional planning is more popular than many other degrees. In fact, it ranks #92 out of 343 on popularity of all such degrees in the nation. As a result, there are many college that offer the degree, making your choice of school a hard one.
College Factual looked at 2 colleges and universities when compiling its 2025 Best Urban & Regional Planning Master's Degree Schools in Oregon ranking. Combined, these schools handed out 56 master's degrees in urban & regional planning to qualified students.
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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
In addition to the above, you should consider some of the following factors:
Major Focus - How much a school focuses on urban & regional planning students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - The number of urban & regional planning students who choose to seek a master's degree at the school.
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 urban & regional planning 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 urban & regional planning related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for urban & regional planning 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 Urban & Regional Planning Master's Degree Schools in Oregon list to help you make the college decision.
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It's hard to beat University of Oregon if you wish to pursue a master's degree in urban & regional planning. UO is a fairly large public university located in the city of Eugene.
Master's students who receive their degree from the urban planning program earn around $53,962 in their early career salary.
It's hard to beat Portland State University if you wish to pursue a master's degree in urban & regional planning. Portland State University is a very large public university located in the city of Portland.
After graduating, urban planning master's recipients typically earn around $57,357 in their early careers.
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).
