You'll be studying one of the lesser sought-after majors if you pursue a Master's Degree in family & consumer economics. It is ranked #207 out of 343 major degree programs in terms of popularity. As such, your educational options may be more limited than if you were in a more popular field.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 3 schools in the Southwest Region to determine which ones were the best for family & consumer economics students pursuing a master's degree. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 154 master's degrees in family & consumer economics during the 2021-2022 academic year.
Choosing a Great Family & Consumer Economics School for Your Master's Degree
The consumer economics master's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. Important measures of a quality consumer economics 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 good education, not just how well they do in a particular major. To take this into account we consider a college's overall Best Colleges for a Master's Degree ranking which itself looks at a host of various 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 much a school focuses on family & consumer economics students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - How many other family & consumer economics 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 much debt family & consumer economics 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 family & consumer economics related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for family & consumer economics students working on their master's degree.
More Ways to Rank Family & Consumer Economics Schools
Since picking the right college can be one of the most important decisions of your life, we've developed the Best Family & Consumer Economics Master's Degree Schools in the Southwest Region ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.
Best Schools for Master’s Students to Study Family & Consumer Economics in the Southwest Region
Below you'll see a list of the best colleges and universities for pursuing a master's degree in family & consumer economics.
Top Southwest Region Schools for a Master's in Consumer Economics
It's hard to beat Texas Tech University if you want to pursue a master's degree in family & consumer economics. Located in the large city of Lubbock, Texas Tech is a public university with a very large student population.
Master's recipients from the family & consumer economics major at Texas Tech University make $19,377 more than the average college grad in this field when they enter the workforce.
Any student who is interested in a master's degree in family & consumer economics needs to check out Arizona State University - Skysong. ASU - Skysong is a very large public university located in the city of Scottsdale.
Master's graduates who receive their degree from the consumer economics program earn an average of $47,736 in the first couple years of their career.
It is difficult to beat New Mexico State University - Main Campus if you wish to pursue a master's degree in family & consumer economics. Located in the medium-sized suburb of Las Cruces, NMSU Main Campus is a public university with a large student population.
Soon after graduation, consumer economics master's recipients typically earn an average of $54,079 in their early 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.
The consumer economics master's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. Important measures of a quality consumer economics program can vary widely even among the top schools. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
