If you plan on getting your master's degree in area studies, you won't be alone since the degree program is ranked #116 in the country in terms of popularity. So, you have a fair amount of options to choose from when looking for a school.
College Factual reviewed 5 schools in the Far Western US Region to determine which ones were the best for master's degree seekers in the field of area studies. Combined, these schools handed out 171 master's degrees in area studies to qualified students.
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Choosing a Great Area Studies School for Your Master's Degree
Your choice of area studies for getting your master's degree school matters. Important measures of a quality area studies 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
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 much a school focuses on area studies students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - The number of area studies 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 area studies 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 area studies related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for area studies 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 Area Studies Master's Degree Schools in the Far Western US Region list to help you make the college decision.
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University of Washington - Seattle Campus is a wonderful option for individuals interested in a master's degree in area studies. Located in the large city of Seattle, UW Seattle is a public university with a very large student population.
Students who graduate with their master's from the area studies program state that they receive average early career wages of $44,276.
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).