Ranked #12 in popularity, general education is one of the most sought-after master's degree programs in the nation. This means there are lots of options to choose from when you decide to get your degree.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 5 schools in Oregon to determine which ones were the best for general education students pursuing a master's degree. Combined, these schools handed out 332 master's degrees in general education to qualified students.
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Choosing a Great General Education School for Your Master's Degree
Your choice of general education for getting your master's degree school matters. Important measures of a quality education 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 good education, not just how well they do in a particular major. To account for this we include a college'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 general education students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - The number of general education 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 general education 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 general education related body.
Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for general education 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 General Education Master's Degree Schools in Oregon ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.
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University of Portland is a wonderful choice for individuals pursuing a master's degree in general education. University of Portland is a small private not-for-profit university located in the large city of Portland.
Students who graduate with their master's from the education program state that they receive average early career earnings of $51,984.
George Fox University is a good decision for individuals pursuing a master's degree in general education. GFU is a small private not-for-profit university located in the town of Newberg.
General Education master's degree recipients from George Fox University receive an earnings boost of around $3,142 over the typical earnings of general education majors.
Oregon State University is a wonderful option for individuals pursuing a master's degree in general education. Located in the city of Corvallis, Oregon State is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Students who graduate with their master's from the education program report average early career wages of $49,928.
It is difficult to beat Southern Oregon University if you want to pursue a master's degree in general education. Located in the midsize suburb of Ashland, Southern Oregon University is a public university with a moderately-sized student population.
Master's recipients from the general education degree program at Southern Oregon University make $3,874 above the standard college grad in this field when they enter the workforce.
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 general education for getting your master's degree school matters. Important measures of a quality education program can vary widely even among the top schools. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.
