Ranked #6 in popularity, educational administration is one of the most sought-after master's degree programs in the nation. This makes choosing the right school a hard decision.
College Factual looked at 17 colleges and universities when compiling its 2025 Best Educational Administration Master's Degree Schools in Illinois ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 1,008 master's degrees in educational administration during the 2022-2023 academic year.
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Choosing a Great Educational Administration School for Your Master's Degree
The education admin 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
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 include a college's overall Best Colleges for a Master's Degree ranking which itself looks at a collection 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 educational administration students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - The number of educational administration 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 easy is it for educational administration 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 educational administration related body.
Our complete 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.
Since picking the right college can be one of the most important decisions of your life, we've developed the Best Educational Administration Master's Degree Schools in Illinois ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.
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It is hard to beat Concordia University, Chicago if you wish to pursue a master's degree in educational administration. Located in the large suburb of River Forest, Concordia University, Chicago is a private not-for-profit university with a moderately-sized student population.
Master's recipients from the educational administration program at Concordia University, Chicago get $4,177 more than the typical college grad with the same degree shortly after graduation.
It is hard to beat Illinois State University if you want to pursue a master's degree in educational administration. Illinois State is a very large public university located in the midsize suburb of Normal.
Educational Administration master's degree recipients from Illinois State University earn a boost of around $4,630 above the typical income of educational administration majors.
Any student pursuing a degree in a master's degree in educational administration has to look into National Louis University. NLU is a medium-sized private not-for-profit university located in the city of Chicago.
Educational Administration master's degree recipients from National Louis University earn a boost of about $5,733 over the typical income of educational administration graduates.
It is hard to beat Loyola University Chicago if you wish to pursue a master's degree in educational administration. Loyola Chicago is a fairly large private not-for-profit university located in the city of Chicago.
Master's students who receive their degree from the education admin program earn an average of $55,802 in the first couple years of working.
Roosevelt is a small private not-for-profit university located in the city of Chicago.
Those educational administration students who get their master's degree from Roosevelt University earn $32,019 more than the typical education admin grad.
North Central is a small private not-for-profit college located in the midsize city of Naperville.
Educational Administration master's degree recipients from North Central College get an earnings boost of about $13,009 over the typical earnings of educational administration graduates.
University of Saint Francis is a small private not-for-profit university located in the suburb of Joliet.
Educational Administration master's degree recipients from University of St Francis receive an earnings boost of about $3,312 over the typical earnings of educational administration graduates.
Located in the large city of Chicago, Northeastern Illinois University is a public university with a moderately-sized student population.
Educational Administration master's degree recipients from Northeastern Illinois University receive an earnings boost of about $14,837 over the typical earnings of educational administration graduates.
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).
The education admin 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:
