Ranked #31 in popularity, general biology is one of the most sought-after master's degree programs in the nation. This makes choosing the right school a hard decision.
College Factual looked at 4 colleges and universities when compiling its 2025 Best General Biology Master's Degree Schools in Virginia ranking. Combined, these schools handed out 233 master's degrees in general biology to qualified students.
Choosing a Great General Biology School for Your Master's Degree
Your choice of general biology 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. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
Quality Overall Is Important
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.
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
In addition to the above, you should consider some of the following factors:
Major Focus - How much a school focuses on general biology students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - The number of general biology 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 general biology 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 general biology related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for general biology students working on their master's degree.
When choosing the right school for you, it's important to arm yourself with all the facts you can. To that end, we've created a number of major-specific rankings, including this Best General Biology Master's Degree Schools in Virginia list to help you make the college decision.
Best Schools for Master’s Students to Study General Biology in Virginia
The following list ranks the best colleges and universities for pursuing a master's degree in general biology.
It is difficult to beat George Mason University if you wish to pursue a master's degree in general biology. GMU is a fairly large public university located in the large suburb of Fairfax.
Those general biology students who get their master's degree from George Mason University earn $15,343 more than the average biology graduate.
James Madison University is a good decision for students pursuing a master's degree in general biology. JMU is a very large public university located in the small city of Harrisonburg.
General Biology master's degree recipients from James Madison University receive an earnings boost of about $7,895 over the typical earnings of general biology majors.
It is difficult to beat Liberty University if you want to pursue a master's degree in general biology. Located in the city of Lynchburg, Liberty University is a private not-for-profit university with a fairly large student population.
Soon after graduating, biology master's recipients generally earn around $32,219 at the beginning of their careers.
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.