Ranked #27 in popularity, electrical engineering 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.
In 2025, College Factual analyzed 20 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Electrical Engineering Master's Degree Schools in the Far Western US Region ranking. Combined, these schools handed out 1,998 master's degrees in electrical engineering to qualified students.
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Choosing a Great Electrical Engineering School for Your Master's Degree
Your choice of electrical engineering for getting your master's degree school matters. Important measures of a quality ee 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 electrical engineering students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - How many other electrical 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 electrical 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 electrical engineering related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for electrical engineering students working on their master's degree.
When choosing the right school for you, it's important to arm yourself with all the facts you can. To that end, we've created a number of major-specific rankings, including this Best Electrical Engineering Master's Degree Schools in the Far Western US Region list to help you make the college decision.
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Stanford University is one of the best schools in the country for getting a master's degree in electrical engineering. Stanford is a fairly large private not-for-profit university located in the suburb of Stanford.
Electrical Engineering master's degree recipients from Stanford University receive an earnings boost of around $28,168 above the average income of electrical engineering graduates.
University of California - Berkeley is one of the best schools in the country for getting a master's degree in electrical engineering. UC Berkeley is a fairly large public university located in the medium-sized city of Berkeley.
Electrical Engineering master's degree recipients from University of California - Berkeley get an earnings boost of around $65,996 over the typical income of electrical engineering majors.
University of Southern California is one of the finest schools in the country for getting a master's degree in electrical engineering. USC is a very large private not-for-profit university located in the city of Los Angeles.
After graduating, ee master's recipients usually earn around $126,936 at the beginning of their careers.
Any student who is interested in a master's degree in electrical engineering has to take a look at University of California - Los Angeles. Located in the city of Los Angeles, UCLA is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Master's students who receive their degree from the ee program earn about $119,390 in the first couple years of working.
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 electrical engineering for getting your master's degree school matters. Important measures of a quality ee program can vary widely even among the top schools. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.
