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 looked at 22 colleges and universities when compiling its 2025 Best Public Health Master's Degree Schools in the Southwest Region ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 1,303 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
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 include a school's overall Best Colleges for a Master's Degree ranking which itself looks at a host 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 Southwest Region.
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Every student who is interested in a master's degree in public health needs to check out The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. Located in the city of Houston, UTHealth is a public university with a moderately-sized student population.
Master's students who receive their degree from the public health program make about $60,515 in their early career salary.
It is hard to beat Texas A&M University - College Station if you wish to pursue a master's degree in public health. Texas A&M College Station is a very large public university located in the city of College Station.
Those public health students who get their master's degree from Texas A&M University - College Station receive $8,311 more than the standard public health student.
Any student pursuing a degree in a master's degree in public health has to look into University of Arizona. University of Arizona is a very large public university located in the large city of Tucson.
Soon after graduation, public health master's recipients generally make an average of $57,296 in the first five years of their career.
Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center is a great option for individuals interested in a master's degree in public health. TTUHSC is a small public university located in the large city of Lubbock.
After graduating, public health master's recipients generally earn about $53,883 in the first five years of their career.
Located in the midsize city of Tempe, ASU - Tempe is a public university with a very large student population.
Public Health master's degree recipients from Arizona State University - Tempe earn a boost of around $8,006 over the average income of public health graduates.
Located in the large city of Albuquerque, UNM is a public university with a very large student population.
Those public health students who get their master's degree from University of New Mexico - Main Campus earn $8,476 more than the typical public health graduate.
ASU - Skysong is a very large public university located in the city of Scottsdale.
Master's recipients from the public health major at Arizona State University - Skysong get $8,006 above the standard college graduate with the same degree shortly after graduation.
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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