2025 Best Physician Assistant Doctor's Degree Schools

Ranked #61 in popularity, physician assistant is one of the most sought-after doctor's degree programs in the nation. This makes choosing the right school a hard decision.

For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 5 schools in the United States to determine which ones were the best for physician assistant students pursuing a doctor's degree. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 510 doctor's degrees in physician assistant during the <nil> academic year.

Jump to one of the following sections: * Our Methodology

• Best Doctor’s Degree Schools List

Choosing a Great Physician Assistant School for Your Doctor's Degree

Your choice of physician assistant for getting your doctor'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

The overall quality of a doctor's degree school is important to ensure a quality education, not just how well they do in a particular major. To make it into this list a school must rank well in our overall Best Colleges for a Doctor's Degree ranking. This ranking considered factors such as graduation rates, overall graduate earnings and other educational resources to identify great colleges and universities.

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 physician assistant students vs. other majors.
• Major Demand - How many other physician assistant students want to attend this school to pursue a doctor'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.
• Accreditation - Whether a school is regionally accredited and/or accredited by a recognized physician assistant related body.

Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for physician assistant students working on their doctor'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 Physician Assistant Doctor's Degree Schools list, to help you choose the best school for you.

Best Schools for Doctorate Students to Study Physician Assistant in the United States

Explore the top ranked colleges and universities for physician assistant students seeking a a doctor's degree.

Top Schools for a Doctorate in Physician Assistant

1

Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences
Boston, MA

Doctor's Degree Highest Degree Type

11 Annual Graduates

Every student who is interested in a doctor's degree in physician assistant has to check out Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences. Located in the large city of Boston, MCPHS University is a private not-for-profit college with a moderately-sized student population.More information about a doctorate in physician assistant from Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences

2

Southern Illinois University Carbondale
Carbondale, IL

Doctor's Degree Highest Degree Type

28 Annual Graduates

Every student pursuing a degree in a doctor's degree in physician assistant needs to take a look at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. SIUC is a fairly large public university located in the distant town of Carbondale.More information about a doctorate in physician assistant from Southern Illinois University Carbondale

3

Baylor University
Waco, TX

Doctor's Degree Highest Degree Type

20 Annual Graduates

Any student who is interested in a doctor's degree in physician assistant has to look into Baylor University. Baylor is a very large private not-for-profit university located in the medium-sized city of Waco.More information about a doctorate in physician assistant from Baylor University

4

Lincoln Memorial University
Harrogate, TN

Doctor's Degree Highest Degree Type

22 Annual Graduates

Every student pursuing a degree in a doctor's degree in physician assistant needs to take a look at Lincoln Memorial University. LMU is a medium-sized private not-for-profit university located in the town of Harrogate.More information about a doctorate in physician assistant from Lincoln Memorial University

5

Shenandoah University
Winchester, VA

Doctor's Degree Highest Degree Type

19 Annual Graduates

Shenandoah is a small private not-for-profit university located in the city of Winchester.More information about a doctorate in physician assistant from Shenandoah University

Physician Assistant by Region

View the Best Physician Assistant Doctor's Degree Schools for a specific region near you.

Region
Southeast
New England
Rocky Mountains
Plains States
Middle Atlantic
Far Western US
Southwest
Other U.S. Territories
Great Lakes

View All Rankings >

Physician Assistant Related Rankings by Major

Physician Assistant is one of 23 different types of Allied Health Professions programs to choose from.

Most Popular Majors Related to Physician Assistant

Related Major	Annual Graduates
Other Allied Health Diagnostic, Intervention, and Treatment Professions	176
Athletic Training	97
Gene/Genetic Therapy	3

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). More about our data sources and methodologies.