a master's degree in systems engineering is more popular than many other degrees. In fact, it ranks #67 out of 343 on popularity of all such degrees in the nation. So, you have a fair amount of options to choose from when looking for a school.
In 2025, College Factual analyzed 38 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Systems Engineering Master's Degree Schools ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 2,407 master's degrees in systems engineering during the <nil> academic year.
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Choosing a Great Systems Engineering School for Your Master's Degree
The systems engineering master's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. Important measures of a quality systems engineering program can vary widely even among the top schools. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
Overall Quality Is a Must
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 consider a school's overall Best Colleges for a Master's Degree ranking which itself looks at a combination of various factors like degree completion, educational resources, student body caliber and post-graduation earnings for the school as a whole.
Average Early-Career Salaries
Average early-career salary of those graduating with their master's degree is one indicator we use in our analysis to find the schools that offer the highest-quality education. After all, your master's degree won't mean much if it doesn't help you find a job that will help you earn a living.
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 systems engineering students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - How many other systems engineering students want to attend this school to pursue a master's degree.
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 systems engineering 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 systems engineering related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for systems engineering students working on their master's degree.
The systems engineering 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 Systems Engineering Master's Degree Schools.
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Massachusetts Institute of Technology is one of the best schools in the United States for getting a master's degree in systems engineering. MIT is a fairly large private not-for-profit school located in the medium-sized city of Cambridge.
Master's recipients from the systems engineering degree program at Massachusetts Institute of Technology earn $35,670 more than the average college graduate in this field when they enter the workforce.
It's hard to beat Johns Hopkins University if you wish to pursue a master's degree in systems engineering. Located in the city of Baltimore, Johns Hopkins is a private not-for-profit university with a very large student population.
Those systems engineering students who get their master's degree from Johns Hopkins University receive $19,506 more than the standard systems engineering student.
Every student pursuing a degree in a master's degree in systems engineering needs to check out University of Southern California. Located in the large city of Los Angeles, USC is a private not-for-profit university with a very large student population.
Master's recipients from the systems engineering major at University of Southern California make $2,762 above the standard graduate with the same degree shortly after graduation.
Every student pursuing a degree in a master's degree in systems engineering has to take a look at University of Florida. UF is a fairly large public university located in the city of Gainesville.
After graduation, systems engineering master's recipients typically earn around $107,972 at the beginning of their careers.
Located in the city of Washington, GWU is a private not-for-profit university with a very large student population.
Master's recipients from the systems engineering program at George Washington University earn $3,657 above the standard graduate with the same degree when they enter the workforce.
Located in the medium-sized city of Ann Arbor, U-M is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Systems Engineering master's degree recipients from University of Michigan - Ann Arbor earn a boost of around $7,313 over the typical income of systems engineering graduates.
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).
The systems engineering master's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. Important measures of a quality systems engineering program can vary widely even among the top schools. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
