Public Health is of the hottest master's degree programs in the United States, coming in as the #14 most popular major in the country. This makes choosing the right school a hard decision.
College Factual reviewed 38 schools in the Far Western US Region to determine which ones were the best for master's degree seekers in the field of public health. Combined, these schools handed out 2,663 master's degrees in public health to qualified students.
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Choosing a Great Public Health School for Your Master's Degree
The public health master's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. Important measures of a quality public health program can vary widely even among the top schools. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
Quality Overall Is Important
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 include a college'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 Earnings
To determine the overall quality of a graduate school, one factor we look at is the average early-career salary of those receiving their master's degree from the school. This is because one of the main reasons people pursue their master's degree is to enable themselves to find better-paying positions.
Other Factors We Consider
The metrics below are just some of the other metrics that we use to determine our rankings.
Major Focus - How many resources a school devotes to public health students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - How many other public health 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 easy is it for public health to pay back their student loans after receiving their master's degree.
Accreditation - Whether a school is regionally accredited and/or accredited by a recognized public health related body.
Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for public health 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 Public Health Master's Degree Schools in the Far Western US Region list, to help you choose the best school for you.
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It's difficult to beat University of California - Los Angeles if you wish to pursue a master's degree in public health. UCLA is a very large public university located in the city of Los Angeles.
Master's recipients from the public health major at University of California - Los Angeles get $10,727 above the average graduate in this field shortly after graduation.
Every student pursuing a degree in a master's degree in public health needs to check out University of Washington - Seattle Campus. UW Seattle is a very large public university located in the large city of Seattle.
Master's recipients from the public health degree program at University of Washington - Seattle Campus earn $5,541 above the typical graduate in this field when they enter the workforce.
Every student pursuing a degree in a master's degree in public health has 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 fairly large student population.
Master's students who receive their degree from the public health program make about $58,611 in their early career salary.
Located in the city of San Diego, SDSU is a public university with a very large student population.
Those public health students who get their master's degree from San Diego State University receive $5,891 more than the average public health graduate.
Located in the large city of San Francisco, USFCA is a private not-for-profit university with a moderately-sized student population.
Public Health master's degree recipients from University of San Francisco get an earnings boost of approximately $8,381 over the average earnings of public health majors.
Located in the large city of Irvine, UC Irvine is a public university with a very large student population.
Public Health master's degree recipients from University of California - Irvine earn a boost of approximately $2,693 above the average income of public health majors.
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 public health master's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. Important measures of a quality public health program can vary widely even among the top schools. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
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