If you plan on getting your master's degree in political science & government, you won't be alone since the degree program is ranked #71 in the country in terms of popularity. This means you won't have too much trouble finding schools that offer the degree.
In 2025, College Factual analyzed 4 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Political Science & Government Master's Degree Schools in Illinois ranking. Combined, these schools handed out 113 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. 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 good education, not just how well they do in a particular major. To account for this we consider a college's overall Best Colleges for a Master's Degree ranking which itself looks at a host of different 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 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
The political science 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 Political Science & Government Master's Degree Schools in Illinois.
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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.
It is hard to beat University of Illinois at Springfield if you want to pursue a master's degree in political science & government. UIS is a small public university located in the city of Springfield.
Soon after graduating, political science master's recipients usually earn an average of $52,565 in the first five years of their career.
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 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. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
