2025 Best History Master's Degree Schools in Illinois

If you plan on getting your master's degree in history, you won't be alone since the degree program is ranked #51 in the country in terms of popularity. So, you have a fair amount of options to choose from when looking for a school.

In 2025, College Factual analyzed 3 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best History Master's Degree Schools in Illinois ranking. Combined, these schools handed out 108 master's degrees in history to qualified students.

What's on this page: * Our Methodology

• Best Master’s Degree Schools List

Choosing a Great History School for Your Master's Degree

The history master's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. This section explores some of the factors we include in our ranking and how much they vary depending on the school you select. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:

Overall Quality Is a Must

The overall quality of a master's degree school is important to ensure a good education, not just how well they do in a particular major. To account for this we consider a school's overall Best Colleges for a Master's Degree ranking which itself looks at a collection of various factors like degree completion, educational resources, student body caliber and post-graduation earnings for the school as a whole.

Average Early-Career Salaries

Average early-career salary of those graduating with their master's degree is one indicator we use in our analysis to find the schools that offer the highest-quality education. After all, your master's degree won't mean much if it doesn't help you find a job that will help you earn a living.

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 history students as compared to other majors.
• Major Demand - The number of history students who choose to seek a master's degree at the school.
• 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 much debt history 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 history related body.

Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for history students working on their master's degree.

More Ways to Rank History Schools

Since the program you select can have a significant impact on your future, we've developed a number of rankings, including this Best History Master's Degree Schools in Illinois list, to help you choose the best school for you.

Best Schools for Master’s Students to Study History in Illinois

Learn about the top ranked colleges and universities for history students seeking a a master's degree.

Top Illinois Schools for a Master's in History

1

Northwestern University
Evanston, IL

11 Annual Graduates

Northwestern University is one of the best schools in the country for getting a master's degree in history. Located in the small city of Evanston, Northwestern is a private not-for-profit university with a fairly large student population.More information about a master’s in history from Northwestern University

2

Loyola University Chicago
Chicago, IL

18 Annual Graduates

Loyola University Chicago is one of the finest schools in the country for getting a master's degree in history. Loyola Chicago is a large private not-for-profit university located in the city of Chicago.More information about a master’s in history from Loyola University Chicago

3

Illinois State University
Normal, IL

11 Annual Graduates

Any student pursuing a degree in a master's degree in history has to check out Illinois State University. Illinois State is a fairly large public university located in the midsize suburb of Normal.More information about a master’s in history from Illinois State University

Best History Colleges in the Great Lakes Region

Explore all the Best History Colleges in the Great Lakes Area or other specific states within that region.

State	Colleges	Degrees Awarded
Michigan	211	40
Ohio	207	116
Indiana	191	59
Wisconsin	173	45

View All Rankings >

Rankings in Majors Related to History

History is one of 0 different types of History programs to choose from.

History Focus Areas

Major	Annual Graduates
General History	95
Public/Applied History	13

Notes and References

• 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). More about our data sources and methodologies.