2025 Best Parks, Recreation & Leisure Studies Schools in Iowa
2Colleges in Iowa
91Parks & Rec Degrees Awarded
$34,246Avg Early-Career Salary
Parks, Recreation & Leisure Studies is about average in terms of popularity for degree programs. That is, it ranks #166 out of the 395 majors across the country that we analyze each year. So, you may have to do some digging around to find quality schools that offer the degree program. This list can help with that.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 2 schools in Iowa to determine which ones were the best for parks, recreation & leisure studies students pursuing a degree. Combined, these schools handed out 91 degrees in parks, recreation & leisure studies to qualified students.
The parks & rec school you choose to invest your time and money in matters. To help you make the decision that is right for you, we've developed a number of major-specific rankings, including this list of the Best Parks, Recreation & Leisure Studies Schools in Iowa.
More interested in schools in a specific area of the country? Filter this list by region or state.
To further help you make the college decision, we've developed a unique tool called College Combat that allows you to compare schools based on the factors that matter the most to you.
Go ahead and give it a try, or bookmark the link so you can check it out later.
Best Schools for Parks, Recreation & Leisure Studies in Iowa
If you aren't interested in a particular degree level and want to know which schools are the overall best at delivering an education for the parks & rec degrees they offer, see the list below.
It is hard to beat University of Iowa if you want to pursue a degree in parks, recreation & leisure studies. Iowa is a fairly large public university located in the small city of Iowa City.
Parks, Recreation & Leisure Studies degree recipients from University of Iowa get an earnings boost of about $2,857 over the average income of parks, recreation & leisure studies graduates.
University of Northern Iowa is one of the best schools in the country for getting a degree in parks, recreation & leisure studies. Located in the small city of Cedar Falls, UNI is a public university with a medium-sized student population.
Parks, Recreation & Leisure Studies degree recipients from University of Northern Iowa earn a boost of approximately $2,987 above the average income of parks, recreation & leisure studies majors.
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).