When it comes to popularity, a master's degree in parks, recreation, leisure, & fitness studies sits in the middle of the road, ranking #16 out of 37 majors in the country. As such, the degree program isn't offered at every college in the United States, but there are schools that do have a program in the field that are top-notch when it comes to quality.
College Factual reviewed 3 schools in New Jersey to determine which ones were the best for master's degree seekers in the field of parks, recreation, leisure, & fitness studies. Combined, these schools handed out 106 master's degrees in parks, recreation, leisure, & fitness studies to qualified students.
Choosing a Great Parks, Recreation, Leisure, & Fitness Studies School for Your Master's Degree
Your choice of parks, recreation, leisure, & fitness studies for getting your master's degree school matters. This section explores some of the factors we include in our ranking and how much they vary depending on the school you select. 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 include a school's overall Best Colleges for a Master's Degree ranking which itself looks at a collection 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 many resources a school devotes to parks, recreation, leisure, & fitness studies students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - How many other parks, recreation, leisure, & fitness 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 parks, recreation, leisure, & fitness 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 parks, recreation, leisure, & fitness studies related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for parks, recreation, leisure, & fitness studies students working on their master's degree.
More Ways to Rank Parks, Recreation, Leisure, & Fitness Studies Schools
When choosing the right school for you, it's important to arm yourself with all the facts you can. To that end, we've created a number of major-specific rankings, including this Best Parks, Recreation, Leisure, & Fitness Studies Master's Degree Schools in New Jersey list to help you make the college decision.
Best Schools for Master’s Students to Study Parks, Recreation, Leisure, & Fitness Studies in New Jersey
Below you'll see a list of the best colleges and universities for pursuing a master's degree in parks, recreation, leisure, & fitness studies.
Top New Jersey 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).