If you plan on getting your master's degree in applied mathematics, you won't be alone since the degree program is ranked #35 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 8 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Applied Mathematics Master's Degree Schools in the Far Western US Region ranking. Combined, these schools handed out 902 master's degrees in applied mathematics to qualified students.
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Choosing a Great Applied Mathematics School for Your Master's Degree
Your choice of applied mathematics 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. 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 take this into account we include a school's overall Best Colleges for a Master's Degree ranking which itself looks at a combination of different 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 applied mathematics students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - The number of applied mathematics 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 applied mathematics 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 applied mathematics related body.
Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for applied mathematics students working on their master's degree.
The applied math 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 Applied Mathematics Master's Degree Schools in the Far Western US Region.
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Any student pursuing a degree in a master's degree in applied mathematics needs to take a look at University of Southern California. Located in the city of Los Angeles, USC is a private not-for-profit university with a very large student population.
Applied Mathematics master's degree recipients from University of Southern California earn a boost of around $3,970 over the typical earnings of applied mathematics graduates.
University of Washington - Seattle Campus is one of the best schools in the United States for getting a master's degree in applied mathematics. UW Seattle is a fairly large public university located in the large city of Seattle.
Master's recipients from the applied mathematics major at University of Washington - Seattle Campus get $18,081 above the typical college graduate with the same degree when they enter the workforce.
Located in the large city of Seattle, Seattle U is a private not-for-profit university with a medium-sized student population.
Master's recipients from the applied mathematics major at Seattle University make $2,627 more than the standard college grad 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).