When it comes to popularity, a master's degree in recreation administration sits in the middle of the road, ranking #164 out of 343 majors in the country. As such, the degree program isn't offered at every college in the United States, but there are schools that do have a program in the field that are top-notch when it comes to quality.
College Factual looked at 16 colleges and universities when compiling its 2025 Best Recreation Administration Master's Degree Schools ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 360 master's degrees in recreation administration during the <nil> academic year.
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Choosing a Great Recreation Administration School for Your Master's Degree
The recreation admin master's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. This section explores some of the factors we include in our ranking and how much they vary depending on the school you select. 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 much a school focuses on recreation administration students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - The number of recreation administration 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 much debt recreation administration 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 recreation administration related body.
Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for recreation administration students working on their master's degree.
More Ways to Rank Recreation Administration Schools
When choosing the right school for you, it's important to arm yourself with all the facts you can. To that end, we've created a number of major-specific rankings, including this Best Recreation Administration Master's Degree Schools list to help you make the college decision.
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Every student who is interested in a master's degree in recreation administration has to look into North Carolina State University. NC State is a very large public university located in the large city of Raleigh.
Master's students who receive their degree from the recreation admin program earn an average of $45,117 in the first couple years of their career.
It's difficult to beat Clemson University if you wish to pursue a master's degree in recreation administration. Clemson is a very large public university located in the suburb of Clemson.
Students who graduate with their master's from the recreation admin program state that they receive average early career wages of $43,626.
Located in the city of Fayetteville, UARK is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Master's recipients from the recreation administration program at University of Arkansas earn $3,526 more than the typical college graduate with the same degree shortly after graduation.
SRU is a medium-sized public university located in the distant town of Slippery Rock.
Those recreation administration students who get their master's degree from Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania earn $2,942 more than the standard recreation admin grad.
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).
The recreation admin master's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. This section explores some of the factors we include in our ranking and how much they vary depending on the school you select. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
