Ranked #19 in popularity, public administration is one of the most sought-after master's degree programs in the nation. This makes choosing the right school a hard decision.
In 2024, College Factual analyzed 4 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Public Administration Master's Degree Schools in District of Columbia ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 283 master's degrees in public administration during the 2020-2021 academic year.
Choosing a Great Public Administration School for Your Master's Degree
Your choice of public administration for getting your master's degree school matters. Important measures of a quality public admin program can vary widely even among the top schools. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
Quality Overall Is Important
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.
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
In addition to the above, you should consider some of the following factors:
Major Focus - How many resources a school devotes to public administration students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - How many other public administration students want to attend this school to pursue a master's degree.
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 easy is it for public administration 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 public administration related body.
Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for public administration students working on their master's degree.
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 Public Administration Master's Degree Schools in District of Columbia list to help you make the college decision.
Best Schools for Master’s Students to Study Public Administration in District of Columbia
The following list ranks the best colleges and universities for pursuing a master's degree in public administration.
Top District of Columbia Schools for a Master's in Public Admin
American University is a wonderful decision for students pursuing a master's degree in public administration. The American University is a fairly large private not-for-profit university located in the city of Washington.
Public Administration master's degree recipients from American University earn a boost of approximately $12,076 above the typical earnings of public administration majors.
Every student who is interested in a master's degree in public administration needs to look into George Washington University. GWU is a very large private not-for-profit university located in the city of Washington.
Those public administration students who get their master's degree from George Washington University earn $14,338 more than the typical public admin student.
It's difficult to beat Strayer University - Global Region if you wish to pursue a master's degree in public administration. Located in the large city of Washington, Strayer University - Global Region is a private for-profit university with a fairly large student population.
Students who graduate with their master's from the public admin program state that they receive average early career earnings of $44,452.
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).
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Your choice of public administration for getting your master's degree school matters. Important measures of a quality public admin program can vary widely even among the top schools. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
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