2025 Best Urban & Regional Planning Master's Degree Schools in California
a master's degree in
urban & regional planning is more popular than many other degrees. In fact, it ranks #92 out of 343 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.
In 2025, College Factual analyzed 3 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Urban & Regional Planning Master's Degree Schools in California ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 285 master's degrees in urban & regional planning during the 2022-2023 academic year.
Jump to one of the following sections: * Our Methodology
Choosing a Great Urban & Regional Planning School for Your Master's Degree
The urban planning 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
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 much a school focuses on urban & regional planning students vs. other majors.
- Major Demand - The number of urban & regional planning 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 urban & regional planning 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 urban & regional planning related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for urban & regional planning students working on their master's degree.
One Size Does Not Fit All
Since the program you select can have a significant impact on your future, we've developed a number of rankings, including this Best Urban & Regional Planning Master's Degree Schools in California list, to help you choose the best school for you.
