a master's degree in security science and technology is more popular than many other degrees. In fact, it ranks #86 out of 343 on popularity of all such degrees in the nation. So, you have a fair amount of options to choose from when looking for a school.
College Factual looked at 3 colleges and universities when compiling its 2025 Best Security Science and Technology Master's Degree Schools in Virginia ranking. Combined, these schools handed out 165 master's degrees in security science and technology to qualified students.
DEBUG: Checking offer "Homeland Security (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" with relevance 0.8
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "Homeland Security (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" ACCEPTED (relevance 0.8)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Grad Cert - Homeland Security (I Have a Bachelors)" with relevance 0.8
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "Grad Cert - Homeland Security (I Have a Bachelors)" ACCEPTED (relevance 0.8)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Homeland Security (I Have a Bachelors)" with relevance 0.8
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "Homeland Security (I Have a Bachelors)" ACCEPTED (relevance 0.8)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Emergency Management (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" with relevance 0.5
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "Emergency Management (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" REJECTED (relevance 0.5)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Emergency Management (I Have a Bachelors)" with relevance 0.5
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "Emergency Management (I Have a Bachelors)" REJECTED (relevance 0.5)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Emergency Management (I Have a Bachelors)" with relevance 0.5
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "Emergency Management (I Have a Bachelors)" REJECTED (relevance 0.5)
DEBUG: relevant_offers count = 3
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 0 offers with relevance >= 1.0
DEBUG: Backfilling with 0 offers with relevance >= 0.9
DEBUG: Backfilling with 3 offers with relevance >= 0.8
Choosing a Great Security Science and Technology School for Your Master's Degree
Your choice of security science and technology for getting your master's degree school matters. This section explores some of the factors we include in our ranking and how much they vary depending on the school you select. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
Overall Quality Is a Must
The overall quality of a master's degree school is important to ensure a good education, not just how well they do in a particular major. To take this into account we include a school's overall Best Colleges for a Master's Degree ranking which itself looks at a combination of different factors like degree completion, educational resources, student body caliber and post-graduation earnings for the school as a whole.
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
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 security science and technology students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - The number of security science and technology 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 security science and technology 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 security science and technology related body.
Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for security science and technology 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 Security Science and Technology Master's Degree Schools in Virginia list, to help you choose the best school for you.
DEBUG: Raw major_slug = "protective-security-safety-services//security-science-and-technology"
It is difficult to beat George Mason University if you wish to pursue a master's degree in security science and technology. Located in the large suburb of Fairfax, GMU is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Those security science and technology students who get their master's degree from George Mason University earn $8,208 more than the typical security science and technology grad.
Virginia Commonwealth University is one of the finest schools in the United States for getting a master's degree in security science and technology. VCU is a fairly large public university located in the medium-sized city of Richmond.
After graduating, security science and technology master's recipients typically earn an average of $48,668 in their early careers.
Regent University is one of the finest schools in the United States for getting a master's degree in security science and technology. Located in the large city of Virginia Beach, Regent is a private not-for-profit university with a fairly large student population.
Security Science and Technology master's degree recipients from Regent University get an earnings boost of around $5,342 over the average earnings of security science and technology graduates.
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.