Homeland Security is above average in terms of popularity with it being the #64 most popular master's degree program in the country. As a result, there are many college that offer the degree, making your choice of school a hard one.
In 2025, College Factual analyzed 32 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Homeland Security Master's Degree Schools ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 2,009 master's degrees in homeland security during the <nil> academic year.
DEBUG: Checking offer "Emergency Management (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "Emergency Management (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Emergency Management (I Have a Bachelors)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "Emergency Management (I Have a Bachelors)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Emergency Management (I Have a Bachelors)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "Emergency Management (I Have a Bachelors)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: relevant_offers count = 5
DEBUG: relevant_offers > 0, checking for ESYOH offers
DEBUG: ESYOH filtering - found 3 ESYOH offers with relevance >= 0.8
DEBUG: esyoh_offers count = 3
DEBUG: ESYOH offers found, rendering ESYOH widget
DEBUG: most_relevant_only = true, filtering for most relevant
DEBUG: Found 3 offers with relevance >= 1.0
Choosing a Great Homeland Security School for Your Master's Degree
Your choice of homeland security for getting your master's degree school matters. Important measures of a quality homeland security program can vary widely even among the top schools. 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 quality education, not just how well they do in a particular major. To account for this we include a college's overall Best Colleges for a Master's Degree ranking which itself looks at a collection 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 homeland security students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - The number of homeland security 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 much debt homeland security 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 homeland security related body.
Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for homeland security students working on their master's degree.
The homeland security 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 Homeland Security Master's Degree Schools.
DEBUG: Raw major_slug = "protective-security-safety-services//homeland-security"
George Washington University is a good option for students interested in a master's degree in homeland security. Located in the city of Washington, GWU is a private not-for-profit university with a very large student population.
Homeland Security master's degree recipients from George Washington University receive an earnings boost of about $34,668 over the typical income of homeland security graduates.
George Mason University is a good decision for individuals interested in a master's degree in homeland security. Located in the suburb of Fairfax, GMU is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Homeland Security master's degree recipients from George Mason University earn a boost of around $62,245 over the average earnings of homeland security majors.
Utica College is one of the finest schools in the United States for getting a master's degree in homeland security. Located in the small city of Utica, Utica College is a private not-for-profit college with a small student population.
Homeland Security master's degree recipients from Utica College get an earnings boost of about $9,898 over the typical income of homeland security graduates.
It's hard to beat Columbia Southern University if you wish to pursue a master's degree in homeland security. Columbia Southern University is a large private for-profit university located in the town of Orange Beach.
Those homeland security students who get their master's degree from Columbia Southern University receive $8,774 more than the average homeland security grad.
ASU - Skysong is a very large public university located in the medium-sized city of Scottsdale.
Master's recipients from the homeland security major at Arizona State University - Skysong make $6,909 more than the average graduate in this field shortly after graduation.
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.