Natural Resources & Conservationmaster's programs are on the lower end of the spectrum in terms of popularity. In fact, the major degree program ranks #23 out of the 37 majors we look at each year. While this may limit the number of schools that offer the degree program, there are still top-quality ones to be found.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 3 schools in North Carolina to determine which ones were the best for natural resources & conservation students pursuing a master's degree. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 340 master's degrees in natural resources & conservation during the 2022-2023 academic year.
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Choosing a Great Natural Resources & Conservation School for Your Master's Degree
The natural resources & conservation master's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. Important measures of a quality natural resources & conservation 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 natural resources & conservation students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - The number of natural resources & conservation students who choose to seek a master's degree at the school.
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 natural resources & conservation 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 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.
Since the program you select can have a significant impact on your future, we've developed a number of rankings, including this Best Natural Resources & Conservation Master's Degree Schools in North Carolina list, to help you choose the best school for you.
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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).
by our College Data Analytics Team
The natural resources & conservation master's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. Important measures of a quality natural resources & conservation program can vary widely even among the top schools. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
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