2025 Best Social Sciences Master's Degree Schools in District of Columbia

a master's degree in social sciences is more popular than many other degrees. In fact, it ranks #9 out of 37 on popularity of all such degrees in the nation. This means you won't have too much trouble finding schools that offer the degree.

College Factual looked at 3 colleges and universities when compiling its 2025 Best Social Sciences Master's Degree Schools in District of Columbia ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 2,008 master's degrees in social sciences during the 2022-2023 academic year.

What's on this page: * Our Methodology

• Best Master’s Degree Schools List

Choosing a Great Social Sciences School for Your Master's Degree

Your choice of social sciences 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. 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 take this into account we consider a school's overall Best Colleges for a Master's Degree ranking which itself looks at a collection of various 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 social sciences students vs. other majors.
• Major Demand - How many other social sciences 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 social sciences 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 social sciences related body.

Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for social sciences students working on their master's degree.

More Ways to Rank Social Sciences Schools

The social sciences 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 Social Sciences Master's Degree Schools in District of Columbia.

Best Schools for Master’s Students to Study Social Sciences in District of Columbia

Below you'll see a list of the best colleges and universities for pursuing a master's degree in social sciences.

Top District of Columbia Schools for a Master's in Social Sciences

1

Georgetown University
Washington, DC

Doctor's Degree Highest Degree Type

720 Annual Graduates

Georgetown University is one of the best schools in the United States for getting a master's degree in social sciences. Georgetown is a fairly large private not-for-profit university located in the large city of Washington.More information about a master’s in social sciences from Georgetown University

2

George Washington University
Washington, DC

Doctor's Degree Highest Degree Type

630 Annual Graduates

George Washington University is one of the best schools in the United States for getting a master's degree in social sciences. Located in the city of Washington, GWU is a private not-for-profit university with a very large student population.More information about a master’s in social sciences from George Washington University

3

American University
Washington, DC

Doctor's Degree Highest Degree Type

584 Annual Graduates

American University is one of the finest schools in the country for getting a master's degree in social sciences. Located in the large city of Washington, The American University is a private not-for-profit university with a large student population.More information about a master’s in social sciences from American University

Best Social Sciences Colleges in the Middle Atlantic Region

Explore all the Best Social Sciences Colleges in the Middle Atlantic Area or other specific states within that region.

State	Colleges	Degrees Awarded
New York	35	1,883
Pennsylvania	34	576
New Jersey	32	239
Maryland	32	1,133
Delaware	24	73

View All Rankings >

Social Sciences Majors to Study

Major	Annual Graduates
International Relations & National Security	1,229
General Social Sciences	266
Political Science & Government	254
Economics	200
Anthropology	26
Sociology	16
Geography & Cartography	14
Urban Studies	1

Majors Similar to Social Sciences

Related Major	Annual Graduates
Communication & Journalism	570
Theology & Religious Vocations	190
Area, Ethnic, Culture, & Gender Studies	158
Foreign Languages & Linguistics	103
History	75
English Language & Literature	55
Philosophy & Religious Studies	52
Family, Consumer & Human Sciences	42
Liberal Arts / Sciences & Humanities	17

Notes and References

• 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).
• Credit for the banner image above goes to AndrГ© KГјnzelmann. More about our data sources and methodologies.