a master's degree in civil engineering is more popular than many other degrees. In fact, it ranks #40 out of 343 on popularity of all such degrees in the nation. This means you won't have too much trouble finding schools that offer the degree.
College Factual reviewed 177 schools in the United States to determine which ones were the best for master's degree seekers in the field of civil engineering. Combined, these schools handed out 4,884 master's degrees in civil engineering to qualified students.
Choosing a Great Civil Engineering School for Your Master's Degree
The civil eng master's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. Important measures of a quality civil eng program can vary widely even among the top schools. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
Quality Overall Is Important
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 college's overall Best Colleges for a Master's Degree ranking which itself looks at a combination of different factors like degree completion, educational resources, student body caliber and post-graduation earnings for the school as a whole.
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
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 civil engineering students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - How many other civil engineering 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 easy is it for civil engineering 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 civil engineering related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for civil engineering students working on their master's degree.
Since the program you select can have a significant impact on your future, we've developed a number of rankings, including this Best Civil Engineering Master's Degree Schools list, to help you choose the best school for you.
Best Schools for Master’s Students to Study Civil Engineering in the United States
Explore the top ranked colleges and universities for civil engineering students seeking a a master's degree. Only those schools that rank in the top 15% of all the schools we analyze get awarded with a place on this list.
Stanford University is one of the best schools in the country for getting a master's degree in civil engineering. Located in the suburb of Stanford, Stanford is a private not-for-profit university with a large student population.
Those civil engineering students who get their master's degree from Stanford University make $8,298 more than the standard civil eng graduate.
It is difficult to beat Massachusetts Institute of Technology if you want to pursue a master's degree in civil engineering. MIT is a fairly large private not-for-profit school located in the midsize city of Cambridge.
Those civil engineering students who get their master's degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology earn $9,586 more than the average civil eng graduate.
Columbia University in the City of New York is one of the finest schools in the country for getting a master's degree in civil engineering. Columbia is a very large private not-for-profit university located in the city of New York.
Those civil engineering students who get their master's degree from Columbia University in the City of New York make $10,953 more than the typical civil eng student.
University of Southern California is one of the best schools in the country for getting a master's degree in civil engineering. Located in the city of Los Angeles, USC is a private not-for-profit university with a fairly large student population.
Master's recipients from the civil engineering degree program at University of Southern California earn $11,082 more than the standard college graduate in this field shortly after graduation.
UW Seattle is a very large public university located in the large city of Seattle.
Those civil engineering students who get their master's degree from University of Washington - Seattle Campus receive $4,947 more than the average civil eng student.
Located in the midsize city of Berkeley, UC Berkeley is a public university with a very large student population.
Those civil engineering students who get their master's degree from University of California - Berkeley earn $3,895 more than the standard civil eng graduate.
Located in the large city of La Jolla, UCSD is a public university with a very large student population.
Those civil engineering students who get their master's degree from University of California - San Diego make $10,978 more than the average civil eng student.
UC Davis is a very large public university located in the suburb of Davis.
Those civil engineering students who get their master's degree from University of California - Davis make $2,747 more than the standard civil eng student.
NJIT is a large public school located in the large city of Newark.
Master's recipients from the civil engineering degree program at New Jersey Institute of Technology make $8,149 more than the typical college grad with the same degree shortly after graduation.
These are some additional schools worth mentioning that are also great but just didn't quite make the cut to earn our top Best Civil Engineering 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 civil eng master's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. Important measures of a quality civil eng program can vary widely even among the top schools. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
