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.
College Factual looked at 4 colleges and universities when compiling its 2025 Best General Education Master's Degree Schools in Missouri ranking. Combined, these schools handed out 174 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 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.
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 schools for general education students working on their master's degree.
The education 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 General Education Master's Degree Schools in Missouri.
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Southwest Baptist University is a good option for individuals interested in a master's degree in general education. Located in the town of Bolivar, Southwest Baptist University is a private not-for-profit university with a small student population.
Those general education students who get their master's degree from Southwest Baptist University earn $3,543 more than the typical education graduate.
Hannibal - LaGrange University is one of the finest schools in the country for getting a master's degree in general education. HLGU is a small private not-for-profit university located in the remote town of Hannibal.
After graduating, education master's recipients generally earn around $37,941 in the first five years of their career.
Central Methodist University - College of Graduate & Extended Studies is a good choice for individuals interested in a master's degree in general education. Located in the rural area of Fayette, CMU CGES is a private not-for-profit university with a small student population.
Master's students who receive their degree from the education program earn about $38,945 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
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.
