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 4 schools in Alabama to determine which ones were the best for master's degree seekers in the field of public health. Combined, these schools handed out 448 master's degrees in public health to qualified students.
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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 complete 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 Alabama ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.
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It is difficult to beat University of Alabama at Birmingham if you want to pursue a master's degree in public health. Located in the city of Birmingham, UAB is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Master's students who receive their degree from the public health program make about $56,823 for their early career.
Samford University is a great option for students pursuing a master's degree in public health. Located in the large suburb of Birmingham, Samford is a private not-for-profit university with a moderately-sized student population.
Students who graduate with their master's from the public health program report average early career income of $57,501.
Any student who is interested in a master's degree in public health needs to look into Columbia Southern University. Located in the fringe town of Orange Beach, Columbia Southern University is a private for-profit university with a fairly large student population.
Soon after graduation, public health master's recipients usually earn about $58,278 at the beginning of their careers.
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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