Biotechnology is above average in terms of popularity with it being the #89 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 6 colleges and universities when compiling its 2025 Best Biotechnology Master's Degree Schools in the Far Western US Region ranking. Combined, these schools handed out 142 master's degrees in biotechnology to qualified students.
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Choosing a Great Biotechnology School for Your Master's Degree
Your choice of biotechnology for getting your master's degree school matters. Important measures of a quality biotech program can vary widely even among the top schools. 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 biotechnology students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - The number of biotechnology 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 easy is it for biotechnology 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 biotechnology related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for biotechnology 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 Biotechnology Master's Degree Schools in the Far Western US Region list to help you make the college decision.
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Any student who is interested in a master's degree in biotechnology has to check out California State University - Channel Islands. CSUCI is a medium-sized public university located in the rural area of Camarillo.
Biotechnology master's degree recipients from California State University - Channel Islands earn a boost of about $19,569 above the average income of biotechnology graduates.
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).
by our College Data Analytics Team
Your choice of biotechnology for getting your master's degree school matters. Important measures of a quality biotech program can vary widely even among the top schools. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
