a master's degree in public policy is more popular than many other degrees. In fact, it ranks #55 out of 343 on popularity of all such degrees in the nation. This means you won't have too much trouble finding schools that offer the degree.
College Factual looked at 2 colleges and universities when compiling its 2025 Best Public Policy Master's Degree Schools in Tennessee ranking. Combined, these schools handed out 48 master's degrees in public policy to qualified students.
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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 master's degree from the school. This is because one of the main reasons people pursue their master's degree is to enable themselves to find better-paying positions.
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 policy students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - The number of public policy 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 easy is it for public policy to pay back their student loans after receiving their master's degree.
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.
Since picking the right college can be one of the most important decisions of your life, we've developed the Best Public Policy Master's Degree Schools in Tennessee ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.
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Fit new strategic skills into your public service passion and goals when you earn an MBA in Public Administration from Southern New Hampshire University.
Vanderbilt University is a good choice for individuals pursuing a master's degree in public policy. Located in the city of Nashville, Vanderbilt is a private not-for-profit university with a large student population.
Students who graduate with their master's from the public policy program report average early career wages of $63,324.
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).
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