Ranked #21 in popularity, theological & ministerial studies 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 6 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Theological & Ministerial Studies Master's Degree Schools in California ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 799 master's degrees in theological & ministerial studies during the 2022-2023 academic year.
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Choosing a Great Theological & Ministerial Studies School for Your Master's Degree
The theology master's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. 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 master's degree school is important to ensure a quality education, not just how well they do in a particular major. To account for this we consider a school's overall Best Colleges for a Master's Degree ranking which itself looks at a collection of various 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 many resources a school devotes to theological & ministerial studies students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - How many other theological & ministerial studies students want to attend this school to pursue a master's degree.
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 much debt theological & ministerial studies 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 theological & ministerial studies related body.
Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for theological & ministerial studies students working on their master's degree.
More Ways to Rank Theological & Ministerial Studies Schools
Since the program you select can have a significant impact on your future, we've developed a number of rankings, including this Best Theological & Ministerial Studies Master's Degree Schools in California 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 theological & ministerial studies needs to look into The Master's University and Seminary. Located in the suburb of Santa Clarita, The Master's University is a private not-for-profit university with a small student population.
Those theological & ministerial studies students who get their master's degree from The Master's University and Seminary make $14,605 more than the standard theology graduate.
It is hard to beat Biola University if you wish to pursue a master's degree in theological & ministerial studies. Biola is a moderately-sized private not-for-profit university located in the large suburb of La Mirada.
After graduation, theology master's recipients generally earn around $42,625 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 theology master's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. 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.
