2025 Best Political Science & Government Master's Degree Schools

Political Science & Government is above average in terms of popularity with it being the #71 most popular master's degree program in the country. As a result, there are many college that offer the degree, making your choice of school a hard one.

College Factual looked at 59 colleges and universities when compiling its 2025 Best Political Science & Government Master's Degree Schools ranking. Combined, these schools handed out 2,000 master's degrees in political science & government to qualified students.

What's on this page: * Our Methodology

• Best Master’s Degree Schools List

Choosing a Great Political Science & Government School for Your Master's Degree

The political science master's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. This section explores some of the factors we include in our ranking and how much they vary depending on the school you select. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.

A Great Overall School

The overall quality of a master's degree school is important to ensure a quality education, not just how well they do in a particular major. To take this into account we consider a school's overall Best Colleges for a Master's Degree ranking which itself looks at a host of different factors like degree completion, educational resources, student body caliber and post-graduation earnings for the school as a whole.

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

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 political science & government students vs. other majors.
• Major Demand - How many other political science & government 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 political science & government 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 political science & government related body.

Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for political science & government students working on their master's degree.

More Ways to Rank Political Science & Government Schools

Since picking the right college can be one of the most important decisions of your life, we've developed the Best Political Science & Government Master's Degree Schools ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.

Best Schools for Master’s Students to Study Political Science & Government in the United States

Learn about the top ranked colleges and universities for political science & government students seeking a a master's degree. Only those schools that rank in the top 20% of all the schools we analyze get awarded with a place on this list.

11 Top Schools for a Master's in Political Science

1

Johns Hopkins University
Baltimore, MD

104 Annual Graduates

$96,306 Median Starting Salary

Johns Hopkins University is a good choice for students pursuing a master's degree in political science & government. Located in the city of Baltimore, Johns Hopkins is a private not-for-profit university with a very large student population.

Those political science & government students who get their master's degree from Johns Hopkins University make $35,945 more than the typical political science student.

More information about a master’s in political science & government from Johns Hopkins University

2

Harvard University
Cambridge, MA

48 Annual Graduates

Every student who is interested in a master's degree in political science & government needs to check out Harvard University. Located in the midsize city of Cambridge, Harvard is a private not-for-profit university with a fairly large student population.More information about a master’s in political science & government from Harvard University

3

Duke University
Durham, NC

25 Annual Graduates

Duke University is one of the best schools in the United States for getting a master's degree in political science & government. Duke is a fairly large private not-for-profit university located in the city of Durham.More information about a master’s in political science & government from Duke University

4

Georgetown University
Washington, DC

41 Annual Graduates

$73,347 Median Starting Salary

Georgetown University is one of the finest schools in the country for getting a master's degree in political science & government. Georgetown is a fairly large private not-for-profit university located in the large city of Washington.

Political Science & Government master's degree recipients from Georgetown University earn a boost of around $12,986 above the typical income of political science & government majors.

More information about a master’s in political science & government from Georgetown University

5

George Washington University
Washington, DC

176 Annual Graduates

$72,470 Median Starting Salary

Located in the city of Washington, GWU is a private not-for-profit university with a fairly large student population.

Political Science & Government master's degree recipients from George Washington University receive an earnings boost of about $12,109 over the typical earnings of political science & government majors.

More information about a master’s in political science & government from George Washington University

6

Northwestern University
Evanston, IL

14 Annual Graduates

Located in the small city of Evanston, Northwestern is a private not-for-profit university with a very large student population.More information about a master’s in political science & government from Northwestern University

7

Columbia University in the City of New York
New York, NY

26 Annual Graduates

Columbia is a fairly large private not-for-profit university located in the large city of New York.More information about a master’s in political science & government from Columbia University in the City of New York

8

Yale University
New Haven, CT

22 Annual Graduates

Yale is a large private not-for-profit university located in the medium-sized city of New Haven.More information about a master’s in political science & government from Yale University

9

Cornell University
Ithaca, NY

11 Annual Graduates

Located in the city of Ithaca, Cornell is a private not-for-profit university with a very large student population.More information about a master’s in political science & government from Cornell University

10

Stanford University
Stanford, CA

11 Annual Graduates

Located in the suburb of Stanford, Stanford is a private not-for-profit university with a fairly large student population.More information about a master’s in political science & government from Stanford University

11

University of California - Berkeley
Berkeley, CA

18 Annual Graduates

Located in the city of Berkeley, UC Berkeley is a public university with a fairly large student population.More information about a master’s in political science & government from University of California - Berkeley

Honorable Mentions

These are some additional schools worth mentioning that are also great but just didn't quite make the cut to earn our top Best Political Science & Government Master's Degree Schools award.

Rank	College	Location
12	University of Notre Dame	Notre Dame, IN
13	University of Connecticut	Storrs, CT
14	University of Wisconsin - Madison	Madison, WI
15	American University	Washington, DC
16	University of Maryland - College Park	College Park, MD
17	Princeton University	Princeton, NJ
18	Villanova University	Villanova, PA
19	New York University	New York, NY

Political Science & Government by Region

View the Best Political Science & Government Master's Degree Schools for a specific region near you.

Region
Southeast
New England
Rocky Mountains
Plains States
Middle Atlantic
Far Western US
Southwest
Other U.S. Territories
Great Lakes

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Rankings in Majors Related to Political Science

One of 13 majors within the Social Sciences area of study, Political Science & Government has other similar majors worth exploring.

Political Science Concentrations

Major	Annual Graduates
Political Science	1,731
American Government & Politics (United States)	165
Other Political Science & Government	91
Political Economy	13

Majors Similar to Political Science

Related Major	Annual Graduates
Economics	5,317
International Relations & National Security	5,262
General Social Sciences	1,618
Sociology	1,358
Geography & Cartography	1,193
Anthropology	1,028
Urban Studies	327
Other Social Sciences	315
Archeology	52
Demography & Population Studies	46

Notes and References

• 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).
• Credit for the banner image above goes to UKWiki at English Wikipedia. More about our data sources and methodologies.