If you pursue a master's degree in educational administration, you won't be alone. The field of study is the #6 most popular program in the country. This means there are lots of options to choose from when you decide to get your degree.
In 2025, College Factual analyzed 14 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Educational Administration Master's Degree Schools in California ranking. Combined, these schools handed out 1,448 master's degrees in educational administration to qualified students.
DEBUG: Checking offer "Leadership (I Have a Masters)" with relevance 0.9
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "Leadership (I Have a Masters)" ACCEPTED (relevance 0.9)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Educational Leadership (I Have a Masters)" with relevance 0.9
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "Educational Leadership (I Have a Masters)" ACCEPTED (relevance 0.9)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Educational Leadership (I Have a Bachelors)" with relevance 0.9
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "Educational Leadership (I Have a Bachelors)" ACCEPTED (relevance 0.9)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Educational Leadership (I Have a Masters)" with relevance 0.9
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "Educational Leadership (I Have a Masters)" ACCEPTED (relevance 0.9)
DEBUG: Checking offer "BS in Business Administration - Organizational Leadership" with relevance 0.8
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "BS in Business Administration - Organizational Leadership" ACCEPTED (relevance 0.8)
DEBUG: relevant_offers count = 8
DEBUG: relevant_offers > 0, checking for ESYOH offers
DEBUG: ESYOH filtering - found 5 ESYOH offers with relevance >= 0.8
DEBUG: esyoh_offers count = 5
DEBUG: ESYOH offers found, rendering ESYOH widget
DEBUG: most_relevant_only = true, filtering for most relevant
DEBUG: Found 1 offers with relevance >= 1.0
Choosing a Great Educational Administration School for Your Master's Degree
Your choice of educational administration for getting your master's degree school matters. Important measures of a quality education admin 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
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.
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
In addition to the above, you should consider some of the following factors:
Major Focus - How many resources a school devotes to educational administration students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - How many other educational administration 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 much debt educational administration 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 educational administration related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for educational administration students working on their master's degree.
More Ways to Rank Educational Administration Schools
The education admin 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 Educational Administration Master's Degree Schools in California.
DEBUG: Raw major_slug = "education//educational-administration"
It's difficult to beat San Diego State University if you want to pursue a master's degree in educational administration. SDSU is a fairly large public university located in the city of San Diego.
After graduating, education admin master's recipients generally earn an average of $69,910 at the beginning of their careers.
National University is one of the best schools in the country for getting a master's degree in educational administration. Located in the large city of San Diego, National University is a private not-for-profit university with a large student population.
Those educational administration students who get their master's degree from National University make $19,191 more than the standard education admin student.
California State University - San Bernardino is one of the finest schools in the country for getting a master's degree in educational administration. Located in the city of San Bernardino, CSUSB is a public university with a large student population.
Master's recipients from the educational administration degree program at California State University - San Bernardino make $30,080 above the typical graduate with the same degree shortly after graduation.
It is difficult to beat California State University - Fullerton if you wish to pursue a master's degree in educational administration. Located in the suburb of Fullerton, Cal State Fullerton is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Students who graduate with their master's from the education admin program state that they receive average early career income of $67,303.
CSUDH is a fairly large public university located in the city of Carson.
Master's recipients from the educational administration degree program at California State University - Dominguez Hills get $20,606 above the typical college graduate with the same degree when they enter the workforce.
Brandman is a moderately-sized public university located in the large city of Irvine.
Educational Administration master's degree recipients from Brandman University earn a boost of about $19,252 above the average income of educational administration majors.
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 educational administration for getting your master's degree school matters. Important measures of a quality education admin program can vary widely even among the top schools. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.
