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 19 schools in the Southwest Region 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 1,233 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 include a school's overall Best Colleges for a Master's Degree ranking which itself looks at a collection of different 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 complete 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.
The public admin 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 Public Administration Master's Degree Schools in the Southwest Region.
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Arizona State University - Tempe is a good choice for students interested in a master's degree in public administration. Located in the midsize city of Tempe, ASU - Tempe is a public university with a very large student population.
Master's students who receive their degree from the public admin program earn an average of $55,985 in their early career salary.
It's hard to beat University of Arizona if you wish to pursue a master's degree in public administration. University of Arizona is a fairly large public university located in the large city of Tucson.
Master's students who receive their degree from the public admin program make about $49,900 for their early career.
Any student pursuing a degree in a master's degree in public administration has to take a look at The University of Texas at Arlington. UT Arlington is a fairly large public university located in the large city of Arlington.
Those public administration students who get their master's degree from The University of Texas at Arlington receive $7,457 more than the typical public admin grad.
It's hard to beat Grand Canyon University if you wish to pursue a master's degree in public administration. Grand Canyon University is a very large private for-profit university located in the large city of Phoenix.
Public Administration master's degree recipients from Grand Canyon University earn a boost of around $5,525 above the average earnings of public administration majors.
UTSA is a fairly large public university located in the large city of San Antonio.
Master's recipients from the public administration program at The University of Texas at San Antonio earn $2,922 more than the typical graduate with the same degree when they enter the workforce.
Located in the town of Stephenville, Tarleton is a public university with a large student population.
Master's recipients from the public administration degree program at Tarleton State University earn $10,497 above the standard college graduate with the same degree when they enter the workforce.
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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