International Studies is above average in terms of popularity with it being the #125 most popular master's degree program in the country. So, you have a fair amount of options to choose from when looking for a school.
College Factual reviewed 3 schools in the Southwest Region to determine which ones were the best for master's degree seekers in the field of international studies. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 170 master's degrees in international studies during the 2022-2023 academic year.
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Choosing a Great International Studies School for Your Master's Degree
Your choice of international studies for getting your master's degree school matters. Important measures of a quality international studies program can vary widely even among the top schools. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
Overall Quality Is a Must
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 include a college's overall Best Colleges for a Master's Degree ranking which itself looks at a collection of different factors like degree completion, educational resources, student body caliber and post-graduation earnings for the school as a whole.
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
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 international studies students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - How many other international 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 much debt international studies 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 international studies related body.
Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for international studies students working on their master's degree.
Since picking the right college can be one of the most important decisions of your life, we've developed the Best International Studies Master's Degree Schools in the Southwest Region ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.
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Featured International Studies Programs
Learn about start dates, transferring credits, availability of financial aid, and more by contacting the universities below.
University of Oklahoma Norman Campus is one of the finest schools in the United States for getting a master's degree in international studies. University of Oklahoma is a fairly large public university located in the midsize suburb of Norman.
Those international studies students who get their master's degree from University of Oklahoma Norman Campus receive $17,874 more than the typical international studies student.
University of Arizona is one of the best schools in the United States for getting a master's degree in international studies. University of Arizona is a fairly large public university located in the city of Tucson.
Master's students who receive their degree from the international studies program make about $46,539 in the first couple years of their 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).