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.
In 2025, College Factual analyzed 36 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Public Health Master's Degree Schools in the Great Lakes Region ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 2,162 master's degrees in public health during the 2022-2023 academic year.
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Choosing a Great Public Health School for Your Master's Degree
Your choice of public health for getting your master'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
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 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
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 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 public health 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 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 master's degree.
Since picking the right college can be one of the most important decisions of your life, we've developed the Best Public Health Master's Degree Schools in the Great Lakes Region ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.
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Every student who is interested in a master's degree in public health has to look into University of Michigan - Ann Arbor. U-M is a fairly large public university located in the midsize city of Ann Arbor.
Public Health master's degree recipients from University of Michigan - Ann Arbor earn a boost of approximately $3,107 over the average earnings of public health graduates.
Northwestern University is a wonderful decision for students pursuing a master's degree in public health. Northwestern is a fairly large private not-for-profit university located in the small city of Evanston.
Master's recipients from the public health program at Northwestern University get $7,344 more than the standard college graduate in this field when they enter the workforce.
Every student pursuing a degree in a master's degree in public health needs to take a look at University of Illinois at Chicago. UIC is a fairly large public university located in the city of Chicago.
Public Health master's degree recipients from University of Illinois at Chicago receive an earnings boost of around $8,421 above the typical income of public health graduates.
University of Wisconsin - Madison is a good choice for students pursuing a master's degree in public health. Located in the city of Madison, UW - Madison is a public university with a very large student population.
After graduating, public health master's recipients generally make an average of $60,435 in the first five years of their career.
Located in the city of Indianapolis, IUPUI is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Master's recipients from the public health major at Indiana University - Purdue University - Indianapolis get $2,059 more than the typical college graduate in this field when they enter the workforce.
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).
Your choice of public health for getting your master'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:
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