If you pursue a master's degree in health & physical education, you won't be alone. The field of study is the #23 most popular program in the country. This makes choosing the right school a hard decision.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 16 schools in the Far Western US Region to determine which ones were the best for health & physical education students pursuing a master's degree. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 975 master's degrees in health & physical education during the 2022-2023 academic year.
DEBUG: Checking offer "Exercise & Sports Science (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" with relevance 0.8
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "Exercise & Sports Science (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" ACCEPTED (relevance 0.8)
DEBUG: Checking offer "BS in Business Administration - Sport Management" with relevance 0.8
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "BS in Business Administration - Sport Management" ACCEPTED (relevance 0.8)
DEBUG: Checking offer "BS in Sport Management" with relevance 0.8
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "BS in Sport Management" ACCEPTED (relevance 0.8)
DEBUG: Checking offer "MBA in Sport Management" with relevance 0.8
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "MBA in Sport Management" ACCEPTED (relevance 0.8)
DEBUG: Checking offer "MS in Sport Management" with relevance 0.8
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "MS in Sport Management" ACCEPTED (relevance 0.8)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Exercise Science (I Have a Bachelors)" with relevance 0.7
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "Exercise Science (I Have a Bachelors)" REJECTED (relevance 0.7)
DEBUG: relevant_offers count = 5
DEBUG: relevant_offers > 0, checking for ESYOH offers
DEBUG: ESYOH filtering - found 1 ESYOH offers with relevance >= 0.8
DEBUG: esyoh_offers count = 1
DEBUG: ESYOH offers found, rendering ESYOH widget
DEBUG: most_relevant_only = true, filtering for most relevant
DEBUG: Found 0 offers with relevance >= 1.0
DEBUG: Backfilling with 0 offers with relevance >= 0.9
DEBUG: Backfilling with 1 offers with relevance >= 0.8
Choosing a Great Health & Physical Education School for Your Master's Degree
The phys ed master's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. Important measures of a quality phys ed program can vary widely even among the top schools. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
Quality Overall Is Important
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 Earnings
To determine the overall quality of a graduate school, one factor we look at is the average early-career salary of those receiving their master's degree from the school. This is because one of the main reasons people pursue their master's degree is to enable themselves to find better-paying positions.
Other Factors We Consider
In addition to the above, you should consider some of the following factors:
Major Focus - How many resources a school devotes to health & physical education students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - How many other health & physical education 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 much debt health & physical education 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 health & physical education related body.
Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for health & physical education students working on their master's degree.
More Ways to Rank Health & Physical Education Schools
The phys ed 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 Health & Physical Education Master's Degree Schools in the Far Western US Region.
DEBUG: Raw major_slug = "parks-recreation-fitness//health-and-physical-education"
Pursue opportunities in collegiate and professional sport management organizations with the support of this well-established online master's degree from Southern New Hampshire University.
It is hard to beat Concordia University, Irvine if you want to pursue a master's degree in health & physical education. Located in the city of Irvine, Concordia University, Irvine is a private not-for-profit university with a small student population.
Master's recipients from the health & physical education major at Concordia University, Irvine make $12,831 more than the average college grad in this field shortly after graduation.
Saint Mary's College of California is one of the finest schools in the United States for getting a master's degree in health & physical education. SMC is a small private not-for-profit college located in the large suburb of Moraga.
Those health & physical education students who get their master's degree from Saint Mary's College of California make $15,499 more than the average phys ed grad.
Any student who is interested in a master's degree in health & physical education has to take a look at University of San Francisco. USFCA is a moderately-sized private not-for-profit university located in the city of San Francisco.
Master's students who receive their degree from the phys ed program earn about $46,187 in the first couple years of their career.
California State University - Long Beach is a good decision for students pursuing a master's degree in health & physical education. CSULB is a very large public university located in the city of Long Beach.
Soon after graduating, phys ed master's recipients generally make an average of $49,357 in the first five years of their career.
Located in the town of Ellensburg, CWU is a public university with a moderately-sized student population.
Those health & physical education students who get their master's degree from Central Washington University receive $12,600 more than the typical phys ed graduate.
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.
The phys ed master's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. Important measures of a quality phys ed program can vary widely even among the top schools. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
