If you plan on getting your master's degree in air transportation, you won't be alone since the degree program is ranked #135 in the country in terms of popularity. This means you won't have too much trouble finding schools that offer the degree.
In 2025, College Factual analyzed 2 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Air Transportation Master's Degree Schools in the Great Lakes Region ranking. Combined, these schools handed out 84 master's degrees in air transportation to qualified students.
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 air transportation students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - How many other air transportation 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 air transportation 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 air transportation related body.
Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for air transportation students working on their master's degree.
Since picking the right college can be one of the most important decisions of your life, we've developed the Best Air Transportation Master's Degree Schools in the Great Lakes Region ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.
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Featured Air Transportation Programs
Learn about start dates, transferring credits, availability of financial aid, and more by contacting the universities below.
Purdue University - Main Campus is one of the finest schools in the United States for getting a master's degree in air transportation. Located in the small city of West Lafayette, Purdue is a public university with a very large student population.
Students who graduate with their master's from the air transport program state that they receive average early career income of $69,976.
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.
