Ranked #19 in popularity, public administration is one of the most sought-after master's degree programs in the nation. This makes choosing the right school a hard decision.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 18 schools in California to determine which ones were the best for public administration students pursuing a master's degree. Combined, these schools handed out 1,278 master's degrees in public administration to qualified students.
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Choosing a Great Public Administration School for Your Master's Degree
The public admin 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 include a college's overall Best Colleges for a Master's Degree ranking which itself looks at a combination 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 public administration students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - The number of public administration students who choose to seek a master's degree at the school.
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 public administration 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 public administration related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for public administration 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 Public Administration Master's Degree Schools in California list to help you make the college decision.
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Every student pursuing a degree in a master's degree in public administration needs to look into University of Southern California. Located in the large city of Los Angeles, USC is a private not-for-profit university with a very large student population.
Those public administration students who get their master's degree from University of Southern California make $10,249 more than the typical public admin graduate.
California State University - Northridge is a good decision for students interested in a master's degree in public administration. CSUN is a fairly large public university located in the city of Northridge.
Master's recipients from the public administration program at California State University - Northridge get $9,755 above the standard graduate in this field shortly after graduation.
It is difficult to beat California State University - Long Beach if you want to pursue a master's degree in public administration. Located in the city of Long Beach, CSULB is a public university with a very large student population.
Master's graduates who receive their degree from the public admin program make around $64,423 for their early career.
California Baptist University is a good decision for individuals pursuing a master's degree in public administration. Cal Baptist is a fairly large private not-for-profit university located in the city of Riverside.
Public Administration master's degree recipients from California Baptist University earn a boost of approximately $11,748 above the average income of public administration majors.
National University is a large private not-for-profit university located in the city of San Diego.
Master's recipients from the public administration degree program at National University get $5,001 above the average graduate with the same degree when they enter the workforce.
Located in the large city of San Diego, SDSU is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Public Administration master's degree recipients from San Diego State University receive an earnings boost of around $3,606 over the typical income of public administration graduates.
Located in the city of Carson, CSUDH is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Master's recipients from the public administration major at California State University - Dominguez Hills earn $4,682 more than the average college graduate with the same degree shortly after graduation.
Located in the city of San Francisco, SFSU is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Public Administration master's degree recipients from San Francisco State University earn a boost of approximately $16,918 over the average earnings of public administration majors.
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 public admin 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:
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