If you pursue a master's degree in public administration, you won't be alone. The field of study is the #19 most popular program in the country. This means there are lots of options to choose from when you decide to get your degree.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 9 schools in North Carolina to determine which ones were the best for public administration students pursuing a master's degree. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 317 master's degrees in public administration during the 2022-2023 academic year.
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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. 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 consider a college's overall Best Colleges for a Master's Degree ranking which itself looks at a host 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 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 colleges for public administration students working on their master's degree.
Since picking the right college can be one of the most important decisions of your life, we've developed the Best Public Administration Master's Degree Schools in North Carolina ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.
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University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is a great decision for individuals interested in a master's degree in public administration. Located in the city of Chapel Hill, UNC Chapel Hill is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Master's recipients from the public administration program at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill earn $14,268 more than the standard graduate with the same degree shortly after graduation.
North Carolina State University is a great choice for students pursuing a master's degree in public administration. Located in the large city of Raleigh, NC State is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Soon after graduation, public admin master's recipients typically make about $51,393 in the first five years of their career.
Any student pursuing a degree in a master's degree in public administration needs to check out University of North Carolina at Charlotte. UNC Charlotte is a fairly large public university located in the large city of Charlotte.
Public Administration master's degree recipients from University of North Carolina at Charlotte receive an earnings boost of about $6,845 over the average earnings of public administration majors.
Any student who is interested in a master's degree in public administration needs to take a look at Appalachian State University. Appalachian State is a fairly large public university located in the distant town of Boone.
Soon after graduating, public admin master's recipients generally make an average of $46,655 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).
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. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.
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