English Language & Literature isn't the most popular master's program in the world, but it's not the least popular either. To be more precise it ranks #17 in popularity out of 37 majors in the country. So, you may have to do some digging around to find quality schools that offer the degree program. This list can help with that.
In 2025, College Factual analyzed 40 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best English Language & Literature Master's Degree Schools in the Southeast Region ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 1,659 master's degrees in english language & literature during the 2022-2023 academic year.
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Choosing a Great English Language & Literature School for Your Master's Degree
The english language & literature master's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. This section explores some of the factors we include in our ranking and how much they vary depending on the school you select. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
Overall Quality Is a Must
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 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
In addition to the above, you should consider some of the following factors:
Major Focus - How many resources a school devotes to english language & literature students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - The number of english language & literature 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 much debt english language & literature 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 english language & literature related body.
Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for english language & literature students working on their master's degree.
Since the program you select can have a significant impact on your future, we've developed a number of rankings, including this Best English Language & Literature Master's Degree Schools in the Southeast Region list, to help you choose the best school for you.
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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 english language & literature master's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. This section explores some of the factors we include in our ranking and how much they vary depending on the school you select. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
