Ranked #3 in popularity, social work is one of the most sought-after master's degree programs in the nation. This means there are lots of options to choose from when you decide to get your degree.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 11 schools in the Rocky Mountains Region to determine which ones were the best for social work students pursuing a master's degree. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 1,902 master's degrees in social work during the 2022-2023 academic year.
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Choosing a Great Social Work School for Your Master's Degree
Your choice of social work 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 social work students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - How many other social work 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 social work 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 social work related body.
Our full 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.
The social work school you choose to invest your time and money in matters. To help you make the decision that is right for you, we've developed a number of major-specific rankings, including this list of the Best Social Work Master's Degree Schools in the Rocky Mountains Region.
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It is hard to beat University of Utah if you wish to pursue a master's degree in social work. U of U is a fairly large public university located in the midsize city of Salt Lake City.
Social Work master's degree recipients from University of Utah receive an earnings boost of about $3,914 over the average earnings of social work graduates.
Every student who is interested in a master's degree in social work needs to check out Colorado State University - Fort Collins. Colorado State is a very large public university located in the medium-sized city of Fort Collins.
Soon after graduation, social work master's recipients generally make about $51,716 in the first five years of their career.
Every student pursuing a degree in a master's degree in social work needs to take a look at Boise State University. Located in the medium-sized city of Boise, Boise State is a public university with a very large student population.
Master's recipients from the social work major at Boise State University get $3,805 above the average college grad with the same degree when they enter the workforce.
It's difficult to beat University of Wyoming if you want to pursue a master's degree in social work. UW is a large public university located in the town of Laramie.
Social Work master's degree recipients from University of Wyoming receive an earnings boost of approximately $4,493 above the average income of social work graduates.
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 social work 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.
