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.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 39 schools in the Middle Atlantic Region to determine which ones were the best for public health students pursuing a master's degree. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 3,615 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 colleges for public health students working on their master's degree.
The public health school you choose to invest your time and money in matters. To help you make the decision that is right for you, we've developed a number of major-specific rankings, including this list of the Best Public Health Master's Degree Schools in the Middle Atlantic Region.
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It's hard to beat Johns Hopkins University if you want to pursue a master's degree in public health. Johns Hopkins is a fairly large private not-for-profit university located in the city of Baltimore.
Public Health master's degree recipients from Johns Hopkins University receive an earnings boost of about $8,726 over the typical earnings of public health majors.
George Washington University is one of the best schools in the country for getting a master's degree in public health. GWU is a very large private not-for-profit university located in the city of Washington.
Public Health master's degree recipients from George Washington University earn a boost of around $7,365 above the typical income of public health graduates.
Rutgers University - New Brunswick is a good choice for students interested in a master's degree in public health. Rutgers New Brunswick is a very large public university located in the city of New Brunswick.
Those public health students who get their master's degree from Rutgers University - New Brunswick earn $5,507 more than the average public health grad.
It's hard to beat University of Maryland - College Park if you wish to pursue a master's degree in public health. UMCP is a very large public university located in the suburb of College Park.
Public Health master's degree recipients from University of Maryland - College Park receive an earnings boost of approximately $10,543 over the typical earnings of public health majors.
Located in the city of Philadelphia, UPenn is a private not-for-profit university with a very large student population.
Public Health master's degree recipients from University of Pennsylvania earn a boost of around $3,432 over the average income of public health majors.
Located in the large city of New York, NYU is a private not-for-profit university with a very large student population.
Public Health master's degree recipients from New York University get an earnings boost of about $4,588 above the typical income of public health graduates.
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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