a master's degree in public administration & social service is more popular than many other degrees. In fact, it ranks #5 out of 37 on popularity of all such degrees in the nation. As a result, there are many college that offer the degree, making your choice of school a hard one.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 8 schools in Pennsylvania to determine which ones were the best for public administration & social service students pursuing a master's degree. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 2,140 master's degrees in public administration & social service during the 2022-2023 academic year.
DEBUG: Checking offer "MBA in Public Administration" with relevance 1
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "MBA in Public Administration" ACCEPTED (relevance 1)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Human Services (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" with relevance 0.8
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "Human Services (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" ACCEPTED (relevance 0.8)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Doctorate - Human Services (I Have a Masters)" with relevance 0.8
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "Doctorate - Human Services (I Have a Masters)" ACCEPTED (relevance 0.8)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Human Services (I Have a Bachelors)" with relevance 0.8
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "Human Services (I Have a Bachelors)" ACCEPTED (relevance 0.8)
DEBUG: Checking offer "PhD - Human Services (I Have a Masters)" with relevance 0.8
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "PhD - Human Services (I Have a Masters)" ACCEPTED (relevance 0.8)
DEBUG: Checking offer "BSW - Social Work (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" with relevance 0.8
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "BSW - Social Work (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" ACCEPTED (relevance 0.8)
DEBUG: Checking offer "DSW - Social Work (I Have a Masters)" with relevance 0.8
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "DSW - Social Work (I Have a Masters)" ACCEPTED (relevance 0.8)
DEBUG: Checking offer "MSW - Social Work (I Have a Bachelors)" with relevance 0.8
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "MSW - Social Work (I Have a Bachelors)" ACCEPTED (relevance 0.8)
DEBUG: Checking offer "PhD - Social Work (I Have a Masters)" with relevance 0.8
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "PhD - Social Work (I Have a Masters)" ACCEPTED (relevance 0.8)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Social Work & Social Sciences Bachelors Programs (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" with relevance 0.8
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "Social Work & Social Sciences Bachelors Programs (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" ACCEPTED (relevance 0.8)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Social Work & Social Sciences Doctorate Programs (I Have a Masters)" with relevance 0.8
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "Social Work & Social Sciences Doctorate Programs (I Have a Masters)" ACCEPTED (relevance 0.8)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Social Work & Social Sciences Masters Programs (I Have a Bachelors)" with relevance 0.8
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "Social Work & Social Sciences Masters Programs (I Have a Bachelors)" ACCEPTED (relevance 0.8)
DEBUG: Checking offer "BA in Human Services" with relevance 0.8
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "BA in Human Services" ACCEPTED (relevance 0.8)
DEBUG: Checking offer "BS in Business Administration - Public Administration" with relevance 0.8
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "BS in Business Administration - Public Administration" ACCEPTED (relevance 0.8)
DEBUG: relevant_offers count = 14
DEBUG: relevant_offers > 0, checking for ESYOH offers
DEBUG: ESYOH filtering - found 11 ESYOH offers with relevance >= 0.5
DEBUG: esyoh_offers count = 11
DEBUG: ESYOH offers found, rendering ESYOH widget
DEBUG: most_relevant_only = true, filtering for most relevant
DEBUG: Found 0 offers with relevance >= 1.0
DEBUG: Backfilling with 0 offers with relevance >= 0.9
DEBUG: Backfilling with 11 offers with relevance >= 0.8
Choosing a Great Public Administration & Social Service School for Your Master's Degree
Your choice of public administration & social service for getting your master'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
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 administration & social service students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - The number of public administration & social service students who choose to seek a master'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 & social service 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 administration & social service related body.
Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for public administration & social service students working on their master's degree.
More Ways to Rank Public Administration & Social Service Schools
Since picking the right college can be one of the most important decisions of your life, we've developed the Best Public Administration & Social Service Master's Degree Schools in Pennsylvania ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.
DEBUG: Raw major_slug = "social-services-public-administration"
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 & social service for getting your master'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.
.jpg){kind=link}