Data Processingmaster's programs are on the lower end of the spectrum in terms of popularity. In fact, the major degree program ranks #209 out of the 343 majors we look at each year. As such, your educational options may be more limited than if you were in a more popular field.
In 2025, College Factual analyzed 3 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Data Processing Master's Degree Schools ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 312 master's degrees in data processing during the <nil> academic year.
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Choosing a Great Data Processing School for Your Master's Degree
The data processing master's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. This section explores some of the factors we include in our ranking and how much they vary depending on the school you select. 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 data processing students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - How many other data processing 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 data processing 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 data processing related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for data processing 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 Data Processing Master's Degree Schools list, to help you choose the best school for you.
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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 data processing master's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. This section explores some of the factors we include in our ranking and how much they vary depending on the school you select. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
