If you plan on getting your doctor's degree in public health, you won't be alone since the degree program is ranked #32 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 looked at 2 colleges and universities when compiling its 2025 Best Public Health Doctor's Degree Schools in the Plains States Region ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 225 doctor's degrees in public health during the 2022-2023 academic year.
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DEBUG: Checking offer "MSN - Public Health (I Have a BSN)" with relevance 1
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DEBUG: Checking offer "Doctorate - Public Health (I Have a Masters)" with relevance 1
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DEBUG: Checking offer "MSN - Public Health (I Have an ADN, ASN, or RN Diploma)" with relevance 1
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DEBUG: Checking offer "Grad Cert - Health Policy (I Have a Bachelors)" with relevance 0.7
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "Grad Cert - Health Policy (I Have a Bachelors)" REJECTED (relevance 0.7)
DEBUG: Checking offer "BA in Sociology - Community Health" with relevance 0.7
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DEBUG: Checking offer "Master of Public Health (MPH) - Global Health" with relevance 0.7
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DEBUG: Checking offer "BSW - Social Work (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" with relevance 0.5
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DEBUG: Checking offer "Social Work & Social Sciences Doctorate Programs (I Have a Masters)" with relevance 0.5
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DEBUG: Checking offer "MS in Criminal Justice - Public Safety Administration" with relevance 0.3
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DEBUG: relevant_offers count = 9
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DEBUG: Found 6 offers with relevance >= 1.0
Average Early-Career Salaries
Average early-career salary of those graduating with their doctor's degree is one indicator we use in our analysis to find the schools that offer the highest-quality education. That is, everyone wants their doctor's degree to be worth something, and salaries are one measure of determining that.
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 public health students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - The number of public health students who choose to seek a doctor'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 public health to pay back their student loans after receiving their doctor's degree.
Accreditation - Whether a school is regionally accredited and/or accredited by a recognized public health related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for public health students working on their doctor'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 Public Health Doctor's Degree Schools in the Plains States Region list to help you make the college decision.
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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).
by our College Data Analytics Team
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