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.
In 2025, College Factual analyzed 4 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Social Work Master's Degree Schools in Arizona ranking. Combined, these schools handed out 613 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. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.
A Great Overall School
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 college'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.
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
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 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.
Since picking the right college can be one of the most important decisions of your life, we've developed the Best Social Work Master's Degree Schools in Arizona ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.
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Any student who is interested in a master's degree in social work needs to look into Arizona State University - Tempe. Located in the midsize city of Tempe, ASU - Tempe is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Social Work master's degree recipients from Arizona State University - Tempe receive an earnings boost of about $2,305 over the average income of social work majors.
Arizona State University - Skysong is a great decision for students pursuing a master's degree in social work. ASU - Skysong is a fairly large public university located in the city of Scottsdale.
Master's recipients from the social work degree program at Arizona State University - Skysong make $2,305 above the standard college grad in this field when they enter the workforce.
Northern Arizona University is a wonderful decision for individuals interested in a master's degree in social work. NAU is a very large public university located in the small city of Flagstaff.
After graduating, social work master's recipients generally make around $47,588 in the first five years of their career.
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. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.
