2025 Best Public Policy Master's Degree Schools in Michigan

Public Policy is above average in terms of popularity with it being the #55 most popular master's degree program in the country. So, you have a fair amount of options to choose from when looking for a school.

For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 2 schools in Michigan to determine which ones were the best for public policy students pursuing a master's degree. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 136 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

Average Early-Career Salaries

Average early-career salary of those graduating with their master's degree is one indicator we use in our analysis to find the schools that offer the highest-quality education. After all, your master's degree won't mean much if it doesn't help you find a job that will help you earn a living.

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 colleges for public policy students working on their master's degree.

More Ways to Rank Public Policy Schools

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 Policy Master's Degree Schools in Michigan list to help you make the college decision.

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

The following list ranks the best colleges and universities for pursuing a master's degree in public policy.

Top Michigan Schools for a Master's in Public Policy

1

University of Michigan - Ann Arbor
Ann Arbor, MI

117 Annual Graduates

$75,277 Median Starting Salary

Every student pursuing a degree in a master's degree in public policy needs to look into University of Michigan - Ann Arbor. U-M is a fairly large public university located in the medium-sized city of Ann Arbor.

Public Policy master's degree recipients from University of Michigan - Ann Arbor earn a boost of about $11,232 over the typical earnings of public policy graduates.

More information about a master’s in public policy from University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

2

Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI

18 Annual Graduates

$52,813 Median Starting Salary

Michigan State University is a great decision for students pursuing a master's degree in public policy. Located in the city of East Lansing, Michigan State is a public university with a fairly large student population.

Students who graduate with their master's from the public policy program report average early career earnings of $52,813.

More information about a master’s in public policy from Michigan State University

Best Public Policy Colleges in the Great Lakes Region

Explore all the Best Public Policy Colleges in the Great Lakes Area or other specific states within that region.

State	Colleges	Degrees Awarded
Illinois	221	303
Ohio	207	11
Wisconsin	173	29

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	136

Majors Similar to Public Policy

Related Major	Annual Graduates
Public Administration	162
Community Organization & Advocacy	45

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.