Ranked #22 in popularity, human resource management 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 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 16 schools in the Plains States Region to determine which ones were the best for human resource management students pursuing a master's degree. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 1,014 master's degrees in human resource management during the 2022-2023 academic year.
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Choosing a Great Human Resource Management School for Your Master's Degree
The hr master's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. Important measures of a quality hr program can vary widely even among the top schools. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
Quality Overall Is Important
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 Earnings
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 human resource management students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - How many other human resource management 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 human resource management 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 human resource management related body.
Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for human resource management students working on their master's degree.
The hr 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 Human Resource Management Master's Degree Schools in the Plains States Region.
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It is difficult to beat University of Minnesota - Twin Cities if you want to pursue a master's degree in human resource management. Located in the city of Minneapolis, UMN Twin Cities is a public university with a very large student population.
Master's recipients from the human resource management major at University of Minnesota - Twin Cities make $28,590 above the standard college grad in this field when they enter the workforce.
It is difficult to beat Webster University if you wish to pursue a master's degree in human resource management. Located in the large suburb of Saint Louis, Webster is a private not-for-profit university with a medium-sized student population.
After graduating, hr master's recipients typically earn about $58,234 in the first five years of their career.
It is hard to beat Saint Mary's University of Minnesota if you want to pursue a master's degree in human resource management. Located in the town of Winona, SMU MN is a private not-for-profit university with a small student population.
Those human resource management students who get their master's degree from Saint Mary's University of Minnesota receive $6,221 more than the standard hr graduate.
Bethel University Minnesota is one of the best schools in the United States for getting a master's degree in human resource management. Located in the suburb of Saint Paul, Bethel University Minnesota is a private not-for-profit university with a small student population.
Human Resource Management master's degree recipients from Bethel University Minnesota receive an earnings boost of about $18,541 above the typical earnings of human resource management majors.
Concordia University, Saint Paul is a medium-sized private not-for-profit university located in the city of Saint Paul.
Those human resource management students who get their master's degree from Concordia University, Saint Paul receive $5,883 more than the standard hr graduate.
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 hr master's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. Important measures of a quality hr program can vary widely even among the top schools. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
