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.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 12 schools in the New England Region to determine which ones were the best for history students pursuing a master's degree. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 556 master's degrees in history during the 2022-2023 academic year.
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Choosing a Great History School for Your Master's Degree
Your choice of history for getting your master's degree school matters. Important measures of a quality history program can vary widely even among the top schools. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
Overall Quality Is a Must
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 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
In addition to the above, you should consider some of the following factors:
Major Focus - How much a school focuses on history students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - How many other history students want to attend this school to pursue a master's degree.
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 easy is it for history 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 history related body.
Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for history students working on their master's degree.
The history 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 History Master's Degree Schools in the New England Region.
Yale University is a wonderful decision for individuals interested in a master's degree in history. Located in the medium-sized city of New Haven, Yale is a private not-for-profit university with a fairly large student population.More information about a master’s in history from Yale University
It is difficult to beat Boston College if you wish to pursue a master's degree in history. Boston College is a large private not-for-profit college located in the city of Chestnut Hill.
Master's recipients from the history major at Boston College make $3,362 above the typical college graduate with the same degree when they enter the workforce.
Norwich is a small private not-for-profit university located in the rural area of Northfield.
Master's recipients from the history degree program at Norwich University make $5,004 more than the average graduate in this field 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.