Ranked #26 in popularity, information technology 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 2023 ranking, College Factual looked at 148 schools in the United States to determine which ones were the best for information technology students pursuing a master's degree. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 9,181 master's degrees in information technology during the 2020-2021 academic year.
Choosing a Great Information Technology School for Your Master's Degree
The IT 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 good 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 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 information technology students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - The number of information technology 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 much debt information technology 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 information technology related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for information technology students working on their master's degree.
The IT 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 Information Technology Master's Degree Schools.
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Featured Information Technology Programs
Learn about start dates, transferring credits, availability of financial aid, and more by contacting the universities below.
To stay competitive in today's information technology world, employees need to have training that goes beyond traditional computer programming and IT expertise.
Best Schools for Master’s Students to Study Information Technology in the United States
Below you'll see a list of the best colleges and universities for pursuing a master's degree in information technology. Only those schools that rank in the top 15% of all the schools we analyze get awarded with a place on this list.
Any student who is interested in a master's degree in information technology has to check out Carnegie Mellon University. Carnegie Mellon is a fairly large private not-for-profit university located in the city of Pittsburgh.
Information Technology master's degree recipients from Carnegie Mellon University receive an earnings boost of about $14,464 over the typical earnings of information technology graduates.
Johns Hopkins University is one of the best schools in the United States for getting a master's degree in information technology. Located in the city of Baltimore, Johns Hopkins is a private not-for-profit university with a fairly large student population.
Master's recipients from the information technology degree program at Johns Hopkins University make $28,287 more than the typical college graduate with the same degree shortly after graduation.
New York University is one of the best schools in the country for getting a master's degree in information technology. NYU is a fairly large private not-for-profit university located in the city of New York.
Those information technology students who get their master's degree from New York University receive $16,479 more than the standard IT student.
Washington University in St Louis is one of the finest schools in the United States for getting a master's degree in information technology. WUSTL is a large private not-for-profit university located in the large suburb of Saint Louis.
Master's recipients from the information technology major at Washington University in St Louis earn $15,415 above the typical graduate in this field when they enter the workforce.
Located in the large suburb of Salt Lake City, WGU is a private not-for-profit university with a very large student population.
Information Technology master's degree recipients from Western Governors University earn a boost of about $22,754 over the average earnings of information technology graduates.
Located in the suburb of Adelphi, UMGC is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Those information technology students who get their master's degree from University of Maryland Global Campus make $10,161 more than the typical IT grad.
UW Seattle is a fairly large public university located in the city of Seattle.
Information Technology master's degree recipients from University of Washington - Seattle Campus receive an earnings boost of about $20,537 above the typical earnings of information technology graduates.
Gain competence in managing the design, oversight and assessment of information security for an enterprise with a focus on the human element of information security with this specialized online master's from Southern New Hampshire University.
Gain a deeper understanding of IT applications used in the healthcare field and further your career with this specialized online master's from Southern New Hampshire University.
These are some additional schools worth mentioning that are also great but just didn't quite make the cut to earn our top Best Information Technology Master's Degree Schools award.
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).
college factual
The IT 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.
