a master's degree in area studies is more popular than many other degrees. In fact, it ranks #116 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.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 3 schools in the Middle Atlantic Region to determine which ones were the best for area studies students pursuing a master's degree. Combined, these schools handed out 340 master's degrees in area studies to qualified students.
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Choosing a Great Area Studies School for Your Master's Degree
The area studies 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 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 various 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 many resources a school devotes to area studies students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - How many other area studies 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 area studies 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 area studies related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for area studies 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 Area Studies Master's Degree Schools in the Middle Atlantic Region list, to help you choose the best school for you.
Best Schools for Master’s Students to Study Area Studies in the Middle Atlantic Region
Explore the top ranked colleges and universities for area studies students seeking a a master's degree.
Top Middle Atlantic Region Schools for a Master's in Area Studies
Any student pursuing a degree in a master's degree in area studies has to look into Georgetown University. Georgetown is a very large private not-for-profit university located in the city of Washington.
Area Studies master's degree recipients from Georgetown University earn a boost of about $12,047 over the typical income of area studies graduates.
Columbia University in the City of New York is a great choice for individuals interested in a master's degree in area studies. Columbia is a very large private not-for-profit university located in the large city of New York.
Students who graduate with their master's from the area studies program state that they receive average early career wages of $42,327.
It is hard to beat New York University if you want to pursue a master's degree in area studies. NYU is a very large private not-for-profit university located in the large city of New York.
Master's students who receive their degree from the area studies program earn about $51,233 for their early career.
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).