a master's degree in computer software & applications is more popular than many other degrees. In fact, it ranks #50 out of 343 on popularity of all such degrees in the nation. So, you have a fair amount of options to choose from when looking for a school.
In 2025, College Factual analyzed 3 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Computer Software & Applications Master's Degree Schools in California ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 364 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. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
Overall Quality Is a Must
The overall quality of a master's degree school is important to ensure a good education, not just how well they do in a particular major. To take this into account we consider a school's overall Best Colleges for a Master's Degree ranking which itself looks at a combination of different factors like degree completion, educational resources, student body caliber and post-graduation earnings for the school as a whole.
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
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 colleges for computer software & applications students working on their master's degree.
The computer software 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 Software & Applications Master's Degree Schools in California.
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It's difficult to beat University of Southern California if you wish to pursue a master's degree in computer software & applications. Located in the city of Los Angeles, USC is a private not-for-profit university with a very large student population.
Computer Software & Applications master's degree recipients from University of Southern California get an earnings boost of around $39,831 over the average earnings of computer software & applications majors.
Academy of Art University is one of the best schools in the United States for getting a master's degree in computer software & applications. Academy of Art University is a medium-sized private for-profit university located in the city of San Francisco.
After graduating, computer software master's recipients usually earn around $55,139 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).
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. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
