Computer Systems Networking isn't the most popular master's program in the world, but it's not the least popular either. To be more precise it ranks #145 in popularity out of 343 majors in the country. So, it might take a little more work to find colleges and universities that offer the degree program.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 3 schools in Illinois to determine which ones were the best for computer systems networking students pursuing a master's degree. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 118 master's degrees in computer systems networking during the 2022-2023 academic year.
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Choosing a Great Computer Systems Networking School for Your Master's Degree
The networking master's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. Important measures of a quality networking program can vary widely even among the top schools. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.
A Great Overall School
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 school's overall Best Colleges for a Master's Degree ranking which itself looks at a collection of different factors like degree completion, educational resources, student body caliber and post-graduation earnings for the school as a whole.
Early-Career Earnings
One measure we use to determine the quality of a school is to look at the average salary of master's graduates during the early years of their career. That is, everyone wants their master's degree to be worth something, and salaries are one measure of determining that.
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 systems networking students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - The number of computer systems networking 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 systems networking 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 systems networking related body.
Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for computer systems networking students working on their master's degree.
More Ways to Rank Computer Systems Networking Schools
The networking 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 Systems Networking Master's Degree Schools in Illinois.
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To stay competitive in today's information technology world, employees need to have training that goes beyond traditional computer programming and IT expertise.
It's hard to beat DeVry University - Illinois if you wish to pursue a master's degree in computer systems networking. Located in the suburb of Lisle, DeVry University - Illinois is a private for-profit university with a fairly large student population.
Master's graduates who receive their degree from the networking program make an average of $74,141 in their early career salary.
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
The networking master's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. Important measures of a quality networking program can vary widely even among the top schools. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.
