Political Science & Government is above average in terms of popularity with it being the #71 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.
College Factual looked at 59 colleges and universities when compiling its 2025 Best Political Science & Government Master's Degree Schools ranking. Combined, these schools handed out 2,000 master's degrees in political science & government to qualified students.
Gain a solid understanding of American political history, the current political landscape, and the major political parties with this online bachelor's from Southern New Hampshire University.
Choosing a Great Political Science & Government School for Your Master's Degree
The political science 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. 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 good education, not just how well they do in a particular major. To take this into account 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.
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 much a school focuses on political science & government students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - How many other political science & government 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 much debt political science & government 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 political science & government related body.
Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for political science & government students working on their master's degree.
More Ways to Rank Political Science & Government Schools
Since picking the right college can be one of the most important decisions of your life, we've developed the Best Political Science & Government Master's Degree Schools ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.
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Gain a solid understanding of American political history, the current political landscape, and the major political parties with this online bachelor's from Southern New Hampshire University.
Best Schools for Master’s Students to Study Political Science & Government in the United States
Explore the top ranked colleges and universities for political science & government students seeking a a master's degree. Only those schools that rank in the top 20% of all the schools we analyze get awarded with a place on this list.
11 Top Schools for a Master's in Political Science
Johns Hopkins University is a wonderful option for students interested in a master's degree in political science & government. Located in the city of Baltimore, Johns Hopkins is a private not-for-profit university with a very large student population.
Those political science & government students who get their master's degree from Johns Hopkins University earn $35,945 more than the standard political science graduate.
Georgetown University is one of the finest schools in the country for getting a master's degree in political science & government. Georgetown is a very large private not-for-profit university located in the city of Washington.
Political Science & Government master's degree recipients from Georgetown University receive an earnings boost of approximately $12,986 above the typical earnings of political science & government graduates.
Located in the large city of Washington, GWU is a private not-for-profit university with a very large student population.
Political Science & Government master's degree recipients from George Washington University receive an earnings boost of approximately $12,109 above the average earnings of political science & government graduates.
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Honorable Mentions
These are some additional schools worth mentioning that are also great but just didn't quite make the cut to earn our top Best Political Science & Government Master's Degree Schools award.
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 political science 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. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.
