College grad programs make magazine's "best" lists

Several Cal State Long Beach master’s degree programs – including two of ours in the College of Education – are among the “best” if you want to graduate with comparatively little debt and high earning potential.

That’s according to a new analysis of government data by the publication Washington Monthly.

The magazine recently compared median debt at graduation to median earnings five years later for people who completed several popular graduate programs at public and for-profit colleges across the country. Using government data, it sought to empower master’s degree applicants to make informed choices.

Two of our CSULB College of Ed programs are standouts in the report. We ranked #1 in the program category of “Best Clinical, Counseling, and Applied Psychology,” with graduates exiting with $25,500 in median debt and earning a median $100,275 five years later. We ranked #9 in the “Best Student Affairs” category with graduates leaving with median debt of $28,000 and earning a median $79,331 five years afterward.

Two other CSULB programs made Washington Monthly’s “best” lists. The university ranked #1 in the program category “Best Communication Disorders” and #5 for “Best Public Administration.”

“Many of the ‘Worst’ performers are colleges and universities that enjoy sterling national reputations, while some of the ‘Best’ are humble institutions, many of them regional public universities that you might never have heard of,” Washington Monthly’s Marc Novicoff wrote. 

Read more about Washington Monthly’s findings.