If you plan on getting your master's degree in aerospace & aeronautical engineering, you won't be alone since the degree program is ranked #74 in the country in terms of popularity. This means you won't have too much trouble finding schools that offer the degree.
In 2025, College Factual analyzed 7 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Aerospace & Aeronautical Engineering Master's Degree Schools in the Great Lakes Region ranking. Combined, these schools handed out 521 master's degrees in aerospace & aeronautical engineering to qualified students.
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Choosing a Great Aerospace & Aeronautical Engineering School for Your Master's Degree
Your choice of aerospace & aeronautical engineering for getting your master's degree school matters. 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 much a school focuses on aerospace & aeronautical engineering students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - How many other aerospace & aeronautical engineering 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 aerospace & aeronautical engineering 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 aerospace & aeronautical engineering related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for aerospace & aeronautical engineering students working on their master's degree.
More Ways to Rank Aerospace & Aeronautical Engineering Schools
Since the program you select can have a significant impact on your future, we've developed a number of rankings, including this Best Aerospace & Aeronautical Engineering Master's Degree Schools in the Great Lakes Region list, to help you choose the best school for you.
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University of Michigan - Ann Arbor is a wonderful decision for students interested in a master's degree in aerospace & aeronautical engineering. U-M is a very large public university located in the midsize city of Ann Arbor.
Those aerospace & aeronautical engineering students who get their master's degree from University of Michigan - Ann Arbor receive $4,195 more than the average aerospace engineering grad.
Purdue University - Main Campus is a wonderful choice for students interested in a master's degree in aerospace & aeronautical engineering. Purdue is a fairly large public university located in the city of West Lafayette.
Students who graduate with their master's from the aerospace engineering program report average early career earnings of $104,329.
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is one of the best schools in the country for getting a master's degree in aerospace & aeronautical engineering. Located in the city of Champaign, UIUC is a public university with a fairly large student population.
After graduating, aerospace engineering master's recipients generally make around $99,132 in their early careers.
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).