Computer Engineering is above average in terms of popularity with it being the #39 most popular master's degree program in the country. As a result, there are many college that offer the degree, making your choice of school a hard one.
In 2025, College Factual analyzed 12 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Computer Engineering Master's Degree Schools in the Southwest Region ranking. Combined, these schools handed out 846 master's degrees in computer engineering to qualified students.
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Choosing a Great Computer Engineering School for Your Master's Degree
The ce master's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. Important measures of a quality ce 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 much a school focuses on computer engineering students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - The number of computer engineering students who choose to seek a master's degree at the school.
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 computer 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 computer engineering related body.
Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for computer engineering 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 Computer Engineering Master's Degree Schools in the Southwest Region ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.
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Every student who is interested in a master's degree in computer engineering has to look into Southern Methodist University. Located in the suburb of Dallas, SMU is a private not-for-profit university with a fairly large student population.
Those computer engineering students who get their master's degree from Southern Methodist University receive $19,333 more than the average ce grad.
The University of Texas at Dallas is a good option for individuals pursuing a master's degree in computer engineering. Located in the city of Richardson, UT Dallas is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Master's students who receive their degree from the ce program earn about $100,030 in the first couple years of their career.
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.
The ce master's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. Important measures of a quality ce program can vary widely even among the top schools. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.
