2025 Best Materials Engineering Master's Degree Schools in the Far Western US Region

If you plan on getting your master's degree in materials engineering, you won't be alone since the degree program is ranked #108 in the country in terms of popularity. This means you won't have too much trouble finding schools that offer the degree.

For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 8 schools in the Far Western US Region to determine which ones were the best for materials engineering students pursuing a master's degree. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 300 master's degrees in materials engineering during the 2022-2023 academic year.

Jump to one of the following sections: * Our Methodology

• Best Master’s Degree Schools List

Choosing a Great Materials Engineering School for Your Master's Degree

Your choice of materials 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 materials engineering students vs. other majors.
• Major Demand - The number of materials 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 materials 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 materials engineering related body.

Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for materials engineering students working on their master's degree.

One Size Does Not Fit All

Since the program you select can have a significant impact on your future, we've developed a number of rankings, including this Best Materials Engineering Master's Degree Schools in the Far Western US Region list, to help you choose the best school for you.

Best Schools for Master’s Students to Study Materials Engineering in the Far Western US Region

Below you'll see a list of the best colleges and universities for pursuing a master's degree in materials engineering.

Top Far Western US Region Schools for a Master's in Materials Engineering

1

Stanford University
Stanford, CA

58 Annual Graduates

Every student pursuing a degree in a master's degree in materials engineering has to check out Stanford University. Stanford is a large private not-for-profit university located in the large suburb of Stanford.More information about a master’s in materials engineering from Stanford University

2

University of California - Los Angeles
Los Angeles, CA

33 Annual Graduates

$98,154 Median Starting Salary

It's hard to beat University of California - Los Angeles if you want to pursue a master's degree in materials engineering. Located in the city of Los Angeles, UCLA is a public university with a very large student population.

Materials Engineering master's degree recipients from University of California - Los Angeles receive an earnings boost of around $12,208 above the average income of materials engineering majors.

More information about a master’s in materials engineering from University of California - Los Angeles

3

University of Southern California
Los Angeles, CA

24 Annual Graduates

Every student who is interested in a master's degree in materials engineering needs to take a look at University of Southern California. USC is a very large private not-for-profit university located in the city of Los Angeles.More information about a master’s in materials engineering from University of Southern California

4

University of California - San Diego
La Jolla, CA

55 Annual Graduates

University of California - San Diego is one of the best schools in the United States for getting a master's degree in materials engineering. UCSD is a very large public university located in the large city of La Jolla.More information about a master’s in materials engineering from University of California - San Diego

5

University of Washington - Seattle Campus
Seattle, WA

51 Annual Graduates

$73,738 Median Starting Salary

Located in the city of Seattle, UW Seattle is a public university with a very large student population.

Students who graduate with their master's from the materials engineering program report average early career wages of $73,738.

More information about a master’s in materials engineering from University of Washington - Seattle Campus

6

University of California - Irvine
Irvine, CA

15 Annual Graduates

UC Irvine is a very large public university located in the large city of Irvine.More information about a master’s in materials engineering from University of California - Irvine

7

University of California - Merced
Merced, CA

10 Annual Graduates

UC Merced is a moderately-sized public university located in the suburb of Merced.More information about a master’s in materials engineering from University of California - Merced

8

Portland State University
Portland, OR

10 Annual Graduates

Portland State University is a fairly large public university located in the city of Portland.More information about a master’s in materials engineering from Portland State University

Best Materials Engineering Colleges by State

Explore the best materials engineering schools for a specific state in the Far Western US Region .

State	Colleges	Degrees Awarded
California	253	222
Washington	183	45
Oregon	158	14
Nevada	105	2

View All Rankings >

Materials Engineering Related Rankings by Major

One of 41 majors within the Engineering area of study, Materials Engineering has other similar majors worth exploring.

Materials Engineering Focus Areas

Major	Annual Graduates
General Materials Engineering	300

Majors Similar to Materials Engineering

Related Major	Annual Graduates
Electrical Engineering	1,998
Mechanical Engineering	1,384
Civil Engineering	1,260
Computer Engineering	1,250
Biomedical Engineering	572
Aerospace & Aeronautical Engineering	399
Other Engineering	355
Operations Research	306
Systems Engineering	301
General Engineering	300

Notes and References

• 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).
• Credit for the banner image above goes to Panoramedia. More about our data sources and methodologies.