2023 Best Parks, Recreation, Leisure, & Fitness Studies Doctor’s Degree Colleges for Veterans in the New England Region

Veterans have lots of options to chooose from today when trying to decide which college to attend. Our mission at College Factual is to arm you with as much information as we can to help you make that decision. Our “Most Veteran Friendly in the New England Region for Parks & Rec for a Doctorate” ranking is one tool we have developed to help in this regard.

Parks, Recreation, Leisure, & Fitness Studies is the 15th most popular major in the country with 73,813 degrees awarded in 2020-2021. In 2019-2020, parks, recreation, leisure, and fitness studies graduates who were awarded their degree in 2017-2019, earned an average of $31,423 and had an average of $24,388 in loans still to pay off.

Across the New England region, there were 2,777 parks, recreation, leisure, and fitness studies graduates with average earnings and debt of $33,506 and $25,928 respectively.

This year’s “Most Veteran Friendly in the New England Region for Parks & Rec for a Doctorate” ranking analyzed 2 colleges that offered a degree in parks, recreation, leisure, and fitness studies. Not only do the schools that top this list have excellent parks, recreation, leisure, and fitness studies programs, but they also offer a lot of support to veterans and active service members.

When determining these rankings, we looked at things such as overall quality of the parks, recreation, leisure, and fitness studies program at the school, veteran affordability, and veteran satisfaction. See our ranking methodology to learn more.

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 “Most Veteran Friendly in the New England Region for Parks & Rec for a Doctorate” list to help you make the college decision.

In addition to our rankings, you can take two colleges and compare them based on the criteria that matters most to you in our unique tool, College Combat. Test it out when you get a chance! You may also want to bookmark the link and share it with others who are trying to make the college decision.

Most Veteran Friendly in the New England Region for Parks & Rec for a Doctorate

The following schools top our list of the Best “Most Veteran Friendly in the New England Region for Parks & Rec for a Doctorate”.

Top 2 Best Parks, Recreation, Leisure, & Fitness Studies Doctor’s Degree Colleges for Veterans in the New England Region

1

Springfield College
Springfield, Massachusetts

1 GI Bill® Students**

#1 in overall quality

$45,043 Average Early-Career Earnings

Out of the 2 schools in the Most Veteran Friendly in the New England Region for Parks & Rec for a Doctorate that were part of this year’s ranking, Springfield College landed the #1 spot on the list. Springfield College is a small private not-for-profit school situated in Springfield, Massachusetts. It awarded 2 doctorate’s parks and rec degrees in 2020-2021.

In addition to being on our new england region doctor’s degree vets studying parks & rec list, Springfield College has also earned the #1 rank in our “Best Parks, Recreation, Leisure, & Fitness Studies Doctor’s Degree Schools in the New England Region” ranking.Our most recent data shows that 1 of the 3,068 students enrolled at Springfield College were GI Bill® students, of which 0 were Post-9/11 GI Bill® recipients. The average Post-9/11 GI Bill® award for tuition and fees at the school was $0. During this same period, 0 students qualified for the Yellow Ribbon Program. Springfield College does offer credit for military training for eligible students.

Students who start out at the school are likely to stick around. The freshman retention rate is 85%.

Read More…

2

University of Massachusetts - Boston
Boston, Massachusetts

678 GI Bill® Students**

#2 in overall quality

$12,414 Average GI Bill® Award

You’ll join some of the best and brightest minds around if you attend University of Massachusetts - Boston. The school came in at #2 for the Most Veteran Friendly in the New England Region for Parks & Rec for a Doctorate. UMass Boston is a public institution located in Boston, Massachusetts. The school has a fairly large population, and it awarded 2 doctorate’s degrees in 2020-2021.

As a testament to the quality of education offered at UMass Boston, the school also landed the #2 spot in our “Best Parks, Recreation, Leisure, & Fitness Studies Doctor’s Degree Schools in the New England Region” ranking.According to our most recent data, UMass Boston supports 16,259 students, and 678 of those are GI Bill® students, of which 362 are Post-9/11 GI Bill® recipients. The average Post-9/11 GI Bill® award for tuition and fees at the school was $12,414. During this same period, 0 students qualified for the Yellow Ribbon Program. UMass Boston offers credit for military training for eligible students.

[Read full report on veteran student life at UMass Boston]](/colleges/university-of-massachusetts-boston/student-life/veterans/)

• Best Parks, Recreation, Leisure, & Fitness Studies Doctor’s Degree Colleges for Veterans

Notes and References

References

• 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 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).
• Veteran-specific data can be found at the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs.
• Information about the national average student loan default rate is from the U.S. Department of Education and refers to data about the 2016 borrower cohort tracking period for which the cohort default rate (CDR) was 10.1%.

Read more about our data sources and methodologies

Footnotes

• *Avg Salary and Avg 4-Year Grad Rate are for the top schools only.
• **GI Bill® student total includes all chapters of the GI Bill® program (e.g., Post-9/11, Montgomery GI Bill, Reserve Education Assistance Program, and Veteran Readiness and Employment)
• Some schools otherwise deserving of recognition may have been removed from this ranking in the event that new data identified post-publication warranted it, or at the request of the school.

Credits

• Credit for the banner image above goes to NPS Photo/Zurbuch.