If you're seeking a Master's Degree in natural resources & conservation, you will have fewer peers than average since the major degree program is the #23 one in the country in terms of popularity.This may make is a little harder to find a school that is a good fit for you.
In 2025, College Factual analyzed 15 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Natural Resources & Conservation Master's Degree Schools in the Far Western US Region ranking. Combined, these schools handed out 804 master's degrees in natural resources & conservation to qualified students.
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Choosing a Great Natural Resources & Conservation School for Your Master's Degree
Your choice of natural resources & conservation 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. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.
A Great Overall School
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 consider a college's overall Best Colleges for a Master's Degree ranking which itself looks at a host of different factors like degree completion, educational resources, student body caliber and post-graduation earnings for the school as a whole.
Early-Career Earnings
One measure we use to determine the quality of a school is to look at the average salary of master's graduates during the early years of their career. That is, everyone wants their master's degree to be worth something, and salaries are one measure of determining that.
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 natural resources & conservation students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - How many other natural resources & conservation 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 much debt natural resources & conservation 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 natural resources & conservation related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for natural resources & conservation students working on their master's degree.
More Ways to Rank Natural Resources & Conservation Schools
Since picking the right college can be one of the most important decisions of your life, we've developed the Best Natural Resources & Conservation Master's Degree Schools in the Far Western US Region ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.
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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 natural resources & conservation 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. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.
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