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 9 schools in the Rocky Mountains Region to determine which ones were the best for master's degree seekers in the field of public health. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 522 master's degrees in public health during the 2022-2023 academic year.
DEBUG: Checking offer "Public Health (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" with relevance 1
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "Public Health (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" ACCEPTED (relevance 1)
DEBUG: Checking offer "MSN - Public Health (I Have a BSN)" with relevance 1
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "MSN - Public Health (I Have a BSN)" ACCEPTED (relevance 1)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Doctorate - Public Health (I Have a Masters)" with relevance 1
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "Doctorate - Public Health (I Have a Masters)" ACCEPTED (relevance 1)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Grad Cert - Public Health (I Have a Bachelors)" with relevance 1
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "Grad Cert - Public Health (I Have a Bachelors)" ACCEPTED (relevance 1)
DEBUG: Checking offer "MPH - Public Health (I Have a Bachelors)" with relevance 1
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "MPH - Public Health (I Have a Bachelors)" ACCEPTED (relevance 1)
DEBUG: Checking offer "MSN - Public Health (I Have an ADN, ASN, or RN Diploma)" with relevance 1
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "MSN - Public Health (I Have an ADN, ASN, or RN Diploma)" ACCEPTED (relevance 1)
DEBUG: Checking offer "BS in Public Health" with relevance 1
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "BS in Public Health" ACCEPTED (relevance 1)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Master of Public Health (MPH)" with relevance 1
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "Master of Public Health (MPH)" ACCEPTED (relevance 1)
DEBUG: Checking offer "BS in Community Health Education" with relevance 0.8
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "BS in Community Health Education" ACCEPTED (relevance 0.8)
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
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "BA in Sociology - Community Health" REJECTED (relevance 0.7)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Master of Public Health (MPH) - Global Health" with relevance 0.7
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "Master of Public Health (MPH) - Global Health" REJECTED (relevance 0.7)
DEBUG: Checking offer "MS in Nursing - Population Healthcare" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "MS in Nursing - Population Healthcare" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: Checking offer "BSW - Social Work (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" with relevance 0.5
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "BSW - Social Work (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" REJECTED (relevance 0.5)
DEBUG: Checking offer "DSW - Social Work (I Have a Masters)" with relevance 0.5
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "DSW - Social Work (I Have a Masters)" REJECTED (relevance 0.5)
DEBUG: Checking offer "MSW - Social Work (I Have a Bachelors)" with relevance 0.5
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "MSW - Social Work (I Have a Bachelors)" REJECTED (relevance 0.5)
DEBUG: Checking offer "PhD - Social Work (I Have a Masters)" with relevance 0.5
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "PhD - Social Work (I Have a Masters)" REJECTED (relevance 0.5)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Social Work & Social Sciences Bachelors Programs (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" with relevance 0.5
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "Social Work & Social Sciences Bachelors Programs (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" REJECTED (relevance 0.5)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Social Work & Social Sciences Doctorate Programs (I Have a Masters)" with relevance 0.5
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "Social Work & Social Sciences Doctorate Programs (I Have a Masters)" REJECTED (relevance 0.5)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Social Work & Social Sciences Masters Programs (I Have a Bachelors)" with relevance 0.5
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "Social Work & Social Sciences Masters Programs (I Have a Bachelors)" REJECTED (relevance 0.5)
DEBUG: Checking offer "MS in Criminal Justice - Public Safety Administration" with relevance 0.3
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "MS in Criminal Justice - Public Safety Administration" REJECTED (relevance 0.3)
DEBUG: relevant_offers count = 9
DEBUG: relevant_offers > 0, checking for ESYOH offers
DEBUG: ESYOH filtering - found 6 ESYOH offers with relevance >= 0.8
DEBUG: esyoh_offers count = 6
DEBUG: ESYOH offers found, rendering ESYOH widget
DEBUG: most_relevant_only = true, filtering for most relevant
DEBUG: Found 6 offers with relevance >= 1.0
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 quality education, not just how well they do in a particular major. To account for this we consider 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 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.
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 Rocky Mountains Region.
DEBUG: Raw major_slug = "health-care-professions//public-health"
It is difficult to beat University of Utah if you wish to pursue a master's degree in public health. Located in the midsize city of Salt Lake City, U of U is a public university with a very large student population.
Soon after graduating, public health master's recipients generally earn around $58,505 in the first five years of their career.
University of Colorado Denver/Anschutz Medical Campus is one of the finest schools in the country for getting a master's degree in public health. CU Anschutz is a very large public university located in the city of Denver.
Students who graduate with their master's from the public health program report average early career income of $61,237.
It is difficult to beat Montana Technological University if you want to pursue a master's degree in public health. Montana Tech is a small public university located in the remote town of Butte.
Those public health students who get their master's degree from Montana Technological University earn $33,240 more than the average public health grad.
Located in the small city of Ogden, WSU is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Master's recipients from the public health program at Weber State University make $7,088 above the typical graduate with the same degree 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).
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:
.jpg){kind=link}