a bachelor's degree in public administration is more popular than many other degrees. In fact, it ranks #103 out of 363 on popularity of all such degrees in the nation. This means you won't have too much trouble finding schools that offer the degree.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 10 schools in the Far Western US Region to determine which ones were the best for public administration students pursuing a bachelor's degree. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 422 bachelor's degrees in public administration during the 2022-2023 academic year.
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Choosing a Great Public Administration School for Your Bachelor's Degree
Your choice of public administration for getting your bachelor's degree school matters. Important measures of a quality public admin program can vary widely even among the top schools. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
Quality Overall Is Important
A school that excels in educating for a particular major and degree level must be a great school overall as well. To make it into this list a school must rank well in our overall Best Colleges ranking. This ranking considered factors such as graduation rates, overall graduate earnings and other educational resources to identify great colleges and universities.
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 bachelor's degree from the school. This is because one of the main reasons people pursue their bachelor's degree is to enable themselves to find better-paying positions.
Other Factors We Consider
In addition to the above, you should consider some of the following factors:
Major Focus - How many resources a school devotes to public administration students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - The number of public administration students who choose to seek a bachelor's degree at the school.
Educational Resources - The amount of money and other resources allocated to students while they are pursuing their degree. These resources include such things as number of students per instructor and education expenditures per student.
Student Debt - How much debt public administration students go into to obtain their bachelor'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 bachelor'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 Bachelor's Degree Schools in the Far Western US Region.
In addition to College Factual's rankings, you may want to take a look at College Combat, our unique tool that lets you pit your favorite schools head-to-head and compare how they rate on factors that most interest you.
When you have some time, check it out - you may want to bookmark the link so you don't forget it.
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Any student pursuing a degree in a bachelor's degree in public administration has to take a look at California State University - Northridge. Located in the city of Northridge, CSUN is a public university with a very large student population.
Public Administration bachelor's degree recipients from California State University - Northridge receive an earnings boost of about $23,125 above the average income of public administration majors.
California Baptist University is a great option for individuals pursuing a bachelor's degree in public administration. Located in the city of Riverside, Cal Baptist is a private not-for-profit university with a fairly large student population.
Those public administration students who get their bachelor's degree from California Baptist University make $15,758 more than the average public admin student.
University of Oregon is one of the finest schools in the United States for getting a bachelor's degree in public administration. UO is a very large public university located in the medium-sized city of Eugene.
After graduating, public admin bachelor's recipients usually earn an average of $39,365 in their early careers.
San Diego State University is one of the finest schools in the country for getting a bachelor's degree in public administration. SDSU is a fairly large public university located in the city of San Diego.
Students who graduate with their bachelor's from the public admin program report average early career earnings of $41,020.
Located in the large city of San Diego, National University is a private not-for-profit university with a fairly large student population.
Those public administration students who get their bachelor's degree from National University earn $24,153 more than the standard public admin graduate.
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 public administration for getting your bachelor's degree school matters. Important measures of a quality public admin program can vary widely even among the top schools. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
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