2025 Best Public Policy Master's Degree Schools in California

If you plan on getting your master's degree in public policy, you won't be alone since the degree program is ranked #55 in the country in terms of popularity. As a result, there are many college that offer the degree, making your choice of school a hard one.

College Factual looked at 3 colleges and universities when compiling its 2025 Best Public Policy Master's Degree Schools in California ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 579 master's degrees in public policy during the 2022-2023 academic year.

Jump to one of the following sections: * Our Methodology

• Best Master’s Degree Schools List

Choosing a Great Public Policy School for Your Master's Degree

Your choice of public policy for getting your master's degree school matters. Important measures of a quality public policy 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

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 for a Master's Degree ranking. This ranking considered factors such as graduation rates, overall graduate earnings and other educational resources to identify great colleges and universities.

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

In addition to the above, you should consider some of the following factors:

• Major Focus - How many resources a school devotes to public policy students as compared to other majors.
• Major Demand - How many other public policy students want to attend this school to pursue a master's degree.
• 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 policy 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 policy related body.

Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for public policy students working on their master's degree.

More Ways to Rank Public Policy Schools

Since the program you select can have a significant impact on your future, we've developed a number of rankings, including this Best Public Policy Master's Degree Schools in California list, to help you choose the best school for you.

Best Schools for Master’s Students to Study Public Policy in California

Below you'll see a list of the best colleges and universities for pursuing a master's degree in public policy.

Top California Schools for a Master's in Public Policy

1

University of Southern California
Los Angeles, CA

116 Annual Graduates

$64,952 Median Starting Salary

Any student pursuing a degree in a master's degree in public policy has to take a look at University of Southern California. USC is a fairly large private not-for-profit university located in the large city of Los Angeles.

Master's recipients from the public policy program at University of Southern California earn $10,551 above the average college grad in this field when they enter the workforce.

More information about a master’s in public policy from University of Southern California

2

University of California - Berkeley
Berkeley, CA

131 Annual Graduates

University of California - Berkeley is one of the best schools in the country for getting a master's degree in public policy. UC Berkeley is a fairly large public university located in the city of Berkeley.More information about a master’s in public policy from University of California - Berkeley

3

University of California - Riverside
Riverside, CA

34 Annual Graduates

$40,275 Median Starting Salary

University of California - Riverside is a great option for students pursuing a master's degree in public policy. Located in the city of Riverside, UCR is a public university with a very large student population.

Master's students who receive their degree from the public policy program make about $40,275 in the first couple years of working.

More information about a master’s in public policy from University of California - Riverside

Best Public Policy Colleges in the Far Western US Region

Explore all the Best Public Policy Colleges in the Far Western US Area or other specific states within that region.

State	Colleges	Degrees Awarded
Washington	183	22
Oregon	158	34
Nevada	105	0
Alaska	52	0

View All Rankings >

Rankings in Majors Related to Public Policy

Public Policy is one of 4 different types of Public Administration & Social Service programs to choose from.

Public Policy Focus Areas

Major	Annual Graduates
General Public Policy Analysis	514
Other Public Policy Analysis	50
International Policy Analysis	9
Health Policy Analysis	6

Most Popular Majors Related to Public Policy

Related Major	Annual Graduates
Public Administration	1,278
Human Services	153
Other Public Administration	30

Notes and References

• 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).
• Credit for the banner image above goes to The Official CTBTO Photostream. More about our data sources and methodologies.