Ranked #17 in popularity, computer science 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 36 schools in the Far Western US Region to determine which ones were the best for computer science students pursuing a master's degree. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 4,385 master's degrees in computer science during the 2022-2023 academic year.
DEBUG: Checking offer "MS in Information Technology - Software Application Development" with relevance 0.8
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "MS in Information Technology - Software Application Development" ACCEPTED (relevance 0.8)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Science & Engineering Bachelors Programs (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "Science & Engineering Bachelors Programs (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Science & Engineering Diploma Programs (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "Science & Engineering Diploma Programs (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: Checking offer "BS in Computer Information Systems" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "BS in Computer Information Systems" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: relevant_offers count = 12
DEBUG: relevant_offers > 0, checking for ESYOH offers
DEBUG: ESYOH filtering - found 8 ESYOH offers with relevance >= 0.8
DEBUG: esyoh_offers count = 8
DEBUG: ESYOH offers found, rendering ESYOH widget
DEBUG: most_relevant_only = true, filtering for most relevant
DEBUG: Found 3 offers with relevance >= 1.0
Choosing a Great Computer Science School for Your Master's Degree
Your choice of computer science for getting your master's degree school matters. Important measures of a quality compsci 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 computer science students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - How many other computer science 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 computer science 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 computer science related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for computer science students working on their master's degree.
The compsci 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 Computer Science Master's Degree Schools in the Far Western US Region.
DEBUG: Raw major_slug = "computer-information-sciences//computer-science"
It's hard to beat Stanford University if you want to pursue a master's degree in computer science. Stanford is a large private not-for-profit university located in the suburb of Stanford.
Those computer science students who get their master's degree from Stanford University make $63,465 more than the average compsci graduate.
University of Southern California is a wonderful option for individuals interested in a master's degree in computer science. USC is a very large private not-for-profit university located in the large city of Los Angeles.
Students who graduate with their master's from the compsci program state that they receive average early career income of $134,544.
University of California - San Diego is one of the best schools in the United States for getting a master's degree in computer science. UCSD is a fairly large public university located in the large city of La Jolla.
Those computer science students who get their master's degree from University of California - San Diego earn $11,966 more than the standard compsci graduate.
UC Irvine is a very large public university located in the large city of Irvine.
Those computer science students who get their master's degree from University of California - Irvine receive $12,180 more than the average compsci grad.
Located in the city of Seattle, UW Seattle is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Master's recipients from the computer science major at University of Washington - Seattle Campus get $18,965 above the standard graduate in this field shortly after graduation.
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).
Your choice of computer science for getting your master's degree school matters. Important measures of a quality compsci program can vary widely even among the top schools. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
