a master's degree in religious studies is more popular than many other degrees. In fact, it ranks #101 out of 343 on popularity of all such degrees in the nation. This means you won't have too much trouble finding schools that offer the degree.
In 2025, College Factual analyzed 3 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Religious Studies Master's Degree Schools in the Middle Atlantic Region ranking. Combined, these schools handed out 831 master's degrees in religious studies to qualified students.
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Choosing a Great Religious Studies School for Your Master's Degree
The religion master's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. Important measures of a quality religion 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
The overall quality of a master's degree school is important to ensure a quality 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 combination of various factors like degree completion, educational resources, student body caliber and post-graduation earnings for the school as a whole.
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
The metrics below are just some of the other metrics that we use to determine our rankings.
Major Focus - How much a school focuses on religious studies students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - The number of religious studies 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 easy is it for religious studies 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 religious studies related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for religious studies students working on their master's degree.
Since picking the right college can be one of the most important decisions of your life, we've developed the Best Religious Studies Master's Degree Schools in the Middle Atlantic Region ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.
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Beth Medrash Govoha is a great decision for students interested in a master's degree in religious studies. Beth Medrash Govoha is a medium-sized private not-for-profit school located in the city of Lakewood.
Master's students who receive their degree from the religion program make an average of $29,393 in their early career salary.
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 religion master's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. Important measures of a quality religion program can vary widely even among the top schools. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
