2025 Best Public Administration & Social Service Doctor's Degree Schools in the Southwest Region

When it comes to popularity, a doctor's degree in public administration & social service sits in the middle of the road, ranking #15 out of 36 majors in the country. So, it might take a little more work to find colleges and universities that offer the degree program.

For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 3 schools in the Southwest Region to determine which ones were the best for public administration & social service students pursuing a doctor's degree. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 83 doctor's degrees in public administration & social service during the 2022-2023 academic year.

Jump to one of the following sections: * Our Methodology

• Best Doctor’s Degree Schools List

Choosing a Great Public Administration & Social Service School for Your Doctor's Degree

Your choice of public administration & social service for getting your doctor's degree school matters. 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 doctor's degree school is important to ensure a good education, not just how well they do in a particular major. To make it into this list a school must rank well in our overall Best Colleges for a Doctor'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 doctorate graduates during the early years of their career. This is because one of the main reasons people pursue their doctor'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 & social service students as compared to other majors.
• Major Demand - How many other public administration & social service students want to attend this school to pursue a doctor'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 administration & social service students go into to obtain their doctor'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 & social service related body.

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

More Ways to Rank Public Administration & Social Service 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 Administration & Social Service Doctor's Degree Schools in the Southwest Region list to help you make the college decision.

Best Schools for Doctorate Students to Study Public Administration & Social Service in the Southwest Region

Below you'll see a list of the best colleges and universities for pursuing a doctor's degree in public administration & social service.

Top Southwest Region Schools for a Doctorate in Public Administration & Social Service

1

The University of Texas at Austin
Austin, TX

Doctor's Degree Highest Degree Type

15 Annual Graduates

The University of Texas at Austin is a wonderful option for individuals interested in a doctor's degree in public administration & social service. Located in the large city of Austin, UT Austin is a public university with a very large student population.More information about a doctorate in public administration & social service from The University of Texas at Austin

2

Arizona State University - Tempe
Tempe, AZ

Doctor's Degree Highest Degree Type

21 Annual Graduates

It's hard to beat Arizona State University - Tempe if you want to pursue a doctor's degree in public administration & social service. ASU - Tempe is a very large public university located in the midsize city of Tempe.More information about a doctorate in public administration & social service from Arizona State University - Tempe

3

Our Lady of the Lake University
San Antonio, TX

Doctor's Degree Highest Degree Type

13 Annual Graduates

Any student who is interested in a doctor's degree in public administration & social service needs to check out Our Lady of the Lake University. OLLU is a small private not-for-profit university located in the large city of San Antonio.More information about a doctorate in public administration & social service from Our Lady of the Lake University

Best Public Administration & Social Service Colleges by State

Explore the best public administration & social service colleges for a specific state in the Southwest Region .

State	Colleges	Degrees Awarded
Texas	29	68
Arizona	28	13

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Public Administration & Social Service Majors to Study

Major	Annual Graduates
Public Policy	33
Public Administration	15

Most Popular Majors Related to Public Administration & Social Service

Related Major	Annual Graduates
Parks, Recreation, Leisure, & Fitness Studies	44

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 University of the Fraser Valley. More about our data sources and methodologies.