When it comes to popularity, a master's degree in urban studies sits in the middle of the road, ranking #171 out of 343 majors in the country. So, it might take a little more work to find colleges and universities that offer the degree program.
College Factual looked at 4 colleges and universities when compiling its 2025 Best Urban Studies Master's Degree Schools in the Middle Atlantic Region ranking. Combined, these schools handed out 141 master's degrees in urban studies to qualified students.
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Choosing a Great Urban Studies School for Your Master's Degree
Your choice of urban studies for getting your master's degree school matters. Important measures of a quality urban studies program can vary widely even among the top schools. 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 quality education, not just how well they do in a particular major. To account for this we include 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.
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 urban studies students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - How many other urban studies 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 urban studies 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 urban studies related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for urban studies students working on their master's degree.
When choosing the right school for you, it's important to arm yourself with all the facts you can. To that end, we've created a number of major-specific rankings, including this Best Urban Studies Master's Degree Schools in the Middle Atlantic Region list to help you make the college decision.
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University of Maryland - College Park is one of the finest schools in the United States for getting a master's degree in urban studies. Located in the large suburb of College Park, UMCP is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Urban Studies master's degree recipients from University of Maryland - College Park earn a boost of about $6,099 above the average earnings of urban studies majors.
Hunter College is one of the best schools in the country for getting a master's degree in urban studies. Hunter is a fairly large public college located in the large city of New York.
Students who graduate with their master's from the urban studies program report average early career earnings of $72,012.
Queens College is a great decision for students interested in a master's degree in urban studies. QC is a fairly large public college located in the city of Queens.
Students who graduate with their master's from the urban studies program report average early career income of $62,828.
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).
Your choice of urban studies for getting your master's degree school matters. Important measures of a quality urban studies program can vary widely even among the top schools. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.
