Social Work is of the hottest master's degree programs in the United States, coming in as the #3 most popular major in the country. This makes choosing the right school a hard decision.
College Factual reviewed 11 schools in Michigan to determine which ones were the best for master's degree seekers in the field of social work. Combined, these schools handed out 1,074 master's degrees in social work to qualified students.
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Choosing a Great Social Work School for Your Master's Degree
The social work master's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. Important measures of a quality social work program can vary widely even among the top schools. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
Quality Overall Is Important
The overall quality of a master's degree school is important to ensure a good education, not just how well they do in a particular major. To take this into account we consider a school's overall Best Colleges for a Master's Degree ranking which itself looks at a host of different factors like degree completion, educational resources, student body caliber and post-graduation earnings for the school as a whole.
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 social work students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - The number of social work 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 social work 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 social work related body.
Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for social work students working on their master's degree.
Since the program you select can have a significant impact on your future, we've developed a number of rankings, including this Best Social Work Master's Degree Schools in Michigan list, to help you choose the best school for you.
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Every student pursuing a degree in a master's degree in social work needs to look into University of Michigan - Ann Arbor. Located in the midsize city of Ann Arbor, U-M is a public university with a very large student population.
Those social work students who get their master's degree from University of Michigan - Ann Arbor make $2,193 more than the standard social work grad.
Every student who is interested in a master's degree in social work needs to take a look at Wayne State University. Located in the city of Detroit, Wayne State is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Master's students who receive their degree from the social work program earn about $50,133 in the first couple years of their career.
It is difficult to beat Michigan State University if you want to pursue a master's degree in social work. Michigan State is a very large public university located in the small city of East Lansing.
Students who graduate with their master's from the social work program state that they receive average early career earnings of $51,191.
Every student who is interested in a master's degree in social work has to check out Grand Valley State University. GVSU is a fairly large public university located in the town of Allendale.
Students who graduate with their master's from the social work program state that they receive average early career wages of $50,344.
Spring Arbor is a small private not-for-profit university located in the rural area of Spring Arbor.
Master's recipients from the social work program at Spring Arbor University get $5,037 above the average college grad in this field when they enter the workforce.
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).
The social work master's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. Important measures of a quality social work program can vary widely even among the top schools. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
