2025 Best Operations Research Master's Degree Schools in California

a master's degree in operations research is more popular than many other degrees. In fact, it ranks #117 out of 343 on popularity of all such degrees in the nation. So, you have a fair amount of options to choose from when looking for a school.

For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 2 schools in California to determine which ones were the best for operations research students pursuing a master's degree. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 306 master's degrees in operations research during the 2022-2023 academic year.

Jump to one of the following sections: * Our Methodology

• Best Master’s Degree Schools List

Average Early-Career Salaries

Average early-career salary of those graduating with their master's degree is one indicator we use in our analysis to find the schools that offer the highest-quality education. After all, your master's degree won't mean much if it doesn't help you find a job that will help you earn a living.

Other Factors We Consider

In addition to the above, you should consider some of the following factors:

• Major Focus - How many resources a school devotes to operations research students as compared to other majors.
• Major Demand - The number of operations research 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 operations research 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 operations research related body.

Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for operations research students working on their master's degree.

More Ways to Rank Operations Research Schools

Since picking the right college can be one of the most important decisions of your life, we've developed the Best Operations Research Master's Degree Schools in California ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.

Best Schools for Master’s Students to Study Operations Research in California

The following list ranks the best colleges and universities for pursuing a master's degree in operations research.

Top California Schools for a Master's in Operations Research

1

University of California - Berkeley
Berkeley, CA

194 Annual Graduates

University of California - Berkeley is one of the best schools in the United States for getting a master's degree in operations research. UC Berkeley is a fairly large public university located in the city of Berkeley.More information about a master’s in operations research from University of California - Berkeley

2

University of Southern California
Los Angeles, CA

21 Annual Graduates

University of Southern California is one of the best schools in the United States for getting a master's degree in operations research. USC is a fairly large private not-for-profit university located in the city of Los Angeles.More information about a master’s in operations research from University of Southern California

Best Operations Research Colleges in the Far Western US Region

Explore all the Best Operations Research Schools in the Far Western US Area or other specific states within that region.

State	Colleges	Degrees Awarded

View All Rankings >

Rankings in Majors Related to Operations Research

One of 41 majors within the Engineering area of study, Operations Research has other similar majors worth exploring.

Operations Research Concentrations

Major	Annual Graduates
General Operations Research	306

Most Popular Related Majors

Related Major	Annual Graduates
Electrical Engineering	1,742
Computer Engineering	1,245
Mechanical Engineering	1,131
Civil Engineering	962
Biomedical Engineering	538
Aerospace & Aeronautical Engineering	355
Other Engineering	353
General Engineering	291
Systems Engineering	291
Materials Engineering	228

Notes and References

• 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). More about our data sources and methodologies.