Parks, Recreation, Leisure, & Fitness Studies isn't the most popular master's program in the world, but it's not the least popular either. To be more precise it ranks #16 in popularity out of 37 majors in the country. So, it might take a little more work to find colleges and universities that offer the degree program.
In 2025, College Factual analyzed 4 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Parks, Recreation, Leisure, & Fitness Studies Master's Degree Schools in Michigan ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 158 master's degrees in parks, recreation, leisure, & fitness studies during the 2022-2023 academic year.
Choosing a Great Parks, Recreation, Leisure, & Fitness Studies School for Your Master's Degree
The parks & rec master's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. Important measures of a quality parks & rec program can vary widely even among the top schools. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.
A Great Overall School
A school that excels in educating for a particular major and degree level must be a great school overall as well. To make it into this list a school must rank well in our overall Best Colleges for a Master's Degree ranking. This ranking considered factors such as graduation rates, overall graduate earnings and other educational resources to identify great colleges and universities.
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
In addition to the above, you should consider some of the following factors:
Major Focus - How much a school focuses on parks, recreation, leisure, & fitness studies students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - The number of parks, recreation, leisure, & fitness studies 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 parks, recreation, leisure, & fitness 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 parks, recreation, leisure, & fitness studies related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for parks, recreation, leisure, & fitness 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 Parks, Recreation, Leisure, & Fitness Studies Master's Degree Schools in Michigan list, to help you choose the best school for you.
Best Schools for Master’s Students to Study Parks, Recreation, Leisure, & Fitness Studies in Michigan
The following list ranks the best colleges and universities for pursuing a master's degree in parks, recreation, leisure, & fitness studies.
Top Michigan Schools for a Master's in Parks & Rec
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).