If you plan on getting your master's degree in computer software & applications, you won't be alone since the degree program is ranked #50 in the country in terms of popularity. This means you won't have too much trouble finding schools that offer the degree.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 3 schools in the Rocky Mountains Region to determine which ones were the best for computer software & applications students pursuing a master's degree. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 718 master's degrees in computer software & applications during the 2022-2023 academic year.
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Choosing a Great Computer Software & Applications School for Your Master's Degree
Your choice of computer software & applications for getting your master's degree school matters. Important measures of a quality computer software 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
The overall quality of a master's degree school is important to ensure a quality education, not just how well they do in a particular major. To take this into account we consider a college's overall Best Colleges for a Master's Degree ranking which itself looks at a host of various factors like degree completion, educational resources, student body caliber and post-graduation earnings for the school as a whole.
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
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 computer software & applications students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - The number of computer software & applications 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 computer software & applications 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 computer software & applications related body.
Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for computer software & applications students working on their master's degree.
Since the program you select can have a significant impact on your future, we've developed a number of rankings, including this Best Computer Software & Applications Master's Degree Schools in the Rocky Mountains Region list, to help you choose the best school for you.
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Western Governors University is one of the finest schools in the United States for getting a master's degree in computer software & applications. Located in the suburb of Salt Lake City, WGU is a private not-for-profit university with a fairly large student population.
Those computer software & applications students who get their master's degree from Western Governors University earn $8,391 more than the average computer software graduate.
It is hard to beat Regis University if you want to pursue a master's degree in computer software & applications. Regis U is a small private not-for-profit university located in the large city of Denver.
Master's recipients from the computer software & applications major at Regis University earn $18,180 more than the standard college graduate with the same degree shortly after graduation.
University of Utah is one of the finest schools in the country for getting a master's degree in computer software & applications. Located in the midsize city of Salt Lake City, U of U is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Students who graduate with their master's from the computer software program state that they receive average early career income of $66,366.
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 software & applications for getting your master's degree school matters. Important measures of a quality computer software program can vary widely even among the top schools. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
