a master's degree in international relations & national security is more popular than many other degrees. In fact, it ranks #43 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 reviewed 5 schools in Massachusetts to determine which ones were the best for master's degree seekers in the field of international relations & national security. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 453 master's degrees in international relations & national security during the 2022-2023 academic year.
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Choosing a Great International Relations & National Security School for Your Master's Degree
Your choice of international relations & national security 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 quality education, not just how well they do in a particular major. To account for this we consider a school'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 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 international relations & national security students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - How many other international relations & national security students want to attend this school to pursue a master's degree.
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 international relations & national security 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 international relations & national security related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for international relations & national security students working on their master's degree.
The international relations 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 International Relations & National Security Master's Degree Schools in Massachusetts.
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It's hard to beat Tufts University if you wish to pursue a master's degree in international relations & national security. Located in the large suburb of Medford, Tufts is a private not-for-profit university with a fairly large student population.
International Relations & National Security master's degree recipients from Tufts University earn a boost of around $10,837 over the typical income of international relations & national security graduates.
Boston University is one of the best schools in the country for getting a master's degree in international relations & national security. Located in the city of Boston, Boston U is a private not-for-profit university with a very large student population.
Master's graduates who receive their degree from the international relations program make around $51,374 in the first couple years of working.
Any student who is interested in a master's degree in international relations & national security needs to look into Northeastern University. Located in the city of Boston, Northeastern is a private not-for-profit university with a very large student population.
After graduating, international relations master's recipients usually earn around $60,311 at the beginning of their careers.
UMass Lowell is a fairly large public university located in the suburb of Lowell.
Those international relations & national security students who get their master's degree from University of Massachusetts - Lowell make $4,651 more than the average international relations student.
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).