Bachelor’s degree · earnings 4 years after completing
Highest-Paying Colleges for Public Administration (Bachelor's)
Graduates who complete a bachelor's degree in Public Administration earn a median of $65,093 four years after finishing, and the middle half earn between $47,237 and $86,663. We rank the 36 U.S. colleges whose Public Administration programs have at least 25 graduates in the Scorecard earnings sample, 2,539 graduates in all. That puts Public Administration at #52 of 131 bachelor's degree fields we rank by national median earnings.
Barry University, in Florida, leads at $97,702, 47% above the median ranked school ($66,488). Most schools are tightly bunched: the middle half of ranked schools earn between $57,575 and $70,234, and the lowest earns $48,958, so outside the leaders the choice of school moves earnings less than the choice of major. 19 of the 36 ranked schools (53%) match or beat the national median.
Public universities dominate the top 20: 14 public, 5 private nonprofit and 1 for-profit. Across all ranked schools, 83% are public. The top 20 are spread across 12 states, with Arizona the most common (3).
The top 20 schools cost more than most: a median net price of $17,915 a year, against $13,520 across all 36 ranked schools. Their graduates who borrowed carry a median of $19,851 in federal loans, about 29% of one year of earnings. Measured against a typical high-school graduate in the same state, the median top-20 school recovers its net cost in about 1.8 years.
Showing the top 36 of 36 ranked schools. Select a column heading to re-sort the table. † = fewer than 40 graduates in the earnings sample.
| 1 | Barry University Miami, FL Private nonprofit · 4-year | $97,702 | 70 | $33,381 | $22,613 | 1.4 |
| 2 | Syracuse University Syracuse, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $89,732 | 72 | $26,000 | $38,793 | 2.9 |
| 3 | University of Maryland Global Campus Adelphi, MD Public · 4-year | $85,909 | 43 | $21,169 | $22,063 | 1.8 |
| 4 | Indiana University-Bloomington Bloomington, IN Public · 4-year | $77,422 | 496 | $19,500 | $16,264 | 1.6 |
| 5 | California Baptist University Riverside, CA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $75,949 | 30 † | $36,707 | $26,285 | 2.7 |
| 6 | Southern New Hampshire University Manchester, NH Private nonprofit · 4-year | $72,437 | 59 | $23,014 | $36,708 | 4.8 |
| 7 | University of Nevada-Las Vegas Las Vegas, NV Public · 4-year | $72,433 | 30 † | — | $10,359 | 1.2 |
| 8 | James Madison University Harrisonburg, VA Public · 4-year | $71,626 | 66 | $18,250 | $23,322 | 2.7 |
| 9 | Western Carolina University Cullowhee, NC Public · 4-year | $70,331 | 41 | $17,234 | $13,315 | 1.5 |
| 10 | Flagler College Saint Augustine, FL Private nonprofit · 4-year | $70,202 | 48 | $21,117 | $30,525 | 3.4 |
| 11 | CUNY Bernard M Baruch College New York, NY Public · 4-year | $69,033 | 61 | $14,159 | $3,033 | 0.4 |
| 12 | California State University-Fullerton Fullerton, CA Public · 4-year | $68,497 | 49 | $12,981 | $6,555 | 0.8 |
| 13 | The University of Arizona Global Campus Chandler, AZ Public · 4-year | $68,344 | 26 † | $33,349 | — | — |
| 14 | University of Phoenix-Arizona Phoenix, AZ For-profit · 4-year | $68,272 | 33 † | $38,250 | $13,520 | 1.7 |
| 15 | California State University-Dominguez Hills Carson, CA Public · 4-year | $68,008 | 66 | $17,250 | $8,615 | 1.1 |
| 16 | George Mason University Fairfax, VA Public · 4-year | $67,973 | 34 † | $18,750 | $17,915 | 2.3 |
| 17 | University of Oregon Eugene, OR Public · 4-year | $67,030 | 49 | $15,795 | $22,182 | 3.0 |
| 18 | CUNY John Jay College of Criminal Justice New York, NY Public · 4-year | $66,834 | 95 | $14,604 | $3,203 | 0.4 |
| 19 | Auburn University Auburn, AL Public · 4-year | $66,141 | 28 † | — | $24,323 | 2.9 |
| 20 | University of Arizona Tucson, AZ Public · 4-year | $64,953 | 71 | $20,202 | $16,674 | 2.3 |
| 21 | Florida International University Miami, FL Public · 4-year | $62,424 | 115 | $23,000 | $9,288 | 1.3 |
| 22 | Ohio State University-Main Campus Columbus, OH Public · 4-year | $60,678 | 70 | $20,500 | $17,339 | 2.8 |
| 23 | Indiana University-Indianapolis Indianapolis, IN Public · 4-year | $60,564 | 102 | $20,625 | $11,668 | 1.9 |
| 24 | University of Wisconsin-Whitewater Whitewater, WI Public · 4-year | $60,383 | 28 † | $23,829 | $14,158 | 2.5 |
| 25 | Texas State University San Marcos, TX Public · 4-year | $59,074 | 55 | $24,141 | $16,805 | 2.8 |
| 26 | Kean University Union, NJ Public · 4-year | $58,100 | 53 | $26,307 | $12,447 | 2.4 |
| 27 | Florida Atlantic University Boca Raton, FL Public · 4-year | $57,679 | 40 | $17,000 | $8,752 | 1.5 |
| 28 | San Diego State University San Diego, CA Public · 4-year | $57,264 | 133 | $14,999 | $15,364 | 3.0 |
| 29 | The University of Texas at San Antonio San Antonio, TX Public · 4-year | $56,557 | 71 | $20,000 | $10,836 | 2.0 |
| 30 | California State University-San Bernardino San Bernardino, CA Public · 4-year | $56,534 | 34 † | $12,904 | $4,564 | 0.9 |
| 31 | Indian River State College Fort Pierce, FL Public · 4-year | $56,032 | 30 † | — | $3,815 | 0.7 |
| 32 | University of Central Florida Orlando, FL Public · 4-year | $55,259 | 39 † | $16,875 | $10,411 | 2.0 |
| 33 | University of Hawaii-West Oahu Kapolei, HI Public · 4-year | $53,891 | 135 | $13,687 | $10,327 | 2.4 |
| 34 | Purdue University Fort Wayne Fort Wayne, IN Public · 4-year | $53,257 | 47 | $20,375 | $13,171 | 3.1 |
| 35 | Grand Valley State University Allendale, MI Public · 4-year | $49,776 | 92 | $25,000 | $16,317 | 4.4 |
| 36 | University of Wisconsin-Green Bay Green Bay, WI Public · 4-year | $48,958 | 28 † | — | $13,369 | 4.7 |
How this ranking is built
A school appears here only if it meets every condition below.
- Which programs count
- Main campuses only, one entry per institution. Scorecard reports program outcomes for the whole six-digit federal ID (OPEID6), so branch campuses share their parent’s numbers and are not listed twice.
- Only bachelor's degree programs in Public Administration (CIP 4404, the four-digit code Scorecard uses to group related programs).
- At least 25 graduates in the earnings sample. Smaller samples are left out because their medians swing too much and the counts carry a little privacy noise.
- A major gets a page only when at least 20 schools qualify. This one has 36.
- Ranked by median earnings 4 years after completing, highest first. Ties go to the larger sample, then to the school name.
- Schools missing earnings or a sample size are left out rather than estimated.
- What the numbers mean
- Earnings: median annual earnings of graduates four years after completing. The cohort completed in academic years 2017-18 and 2018-19 and was measured in calendar years 2022 and 2023, in 2024 dollars.
- Who is counted: graduates who received federal student aid (Title IV grants or loans), and only those who were working and not enrolled in more school that year. Graduates without federal aid, those who went on to further study and those with no earnings are not in the median.
- Scorecard adds privacy noise to counts and medians and hides values it cannot protect, so a gap of a few percent between two schools is not meaningful.
- Graduates: the number of graduates in that earnings sample. A † marks fewer than 40, where the figure is less precise.
- Debt: median federal loan debt (Stafford and Grad PLUS loans disbursed at that school) of graduates who borrowed, from the 2018-19 and 2019-20 completers. Parent PLUS and private loans are not included.
- Net price: average yearly cost after grants and scholarships for the whole institution, not this major, academic year 2023-24.
- Payback: 4 years of net price divided by how much these earnings exceed a high-school graduate’s in the school’s state. Shown only when that gap is at least $2,000, the same formula as the rest of the site.
- Source: U.S. Department of Education College Scorecard field-of-study data, June 2026 release.
Top states for Public Administration earnings
Median of the school medians for states with at least 3 ranked schools. The best school in each state is shown.
| State | Median earnings | Ranked schools | Top school |
|---|---|---|---|
| New York | $69,033 | 3 | Syracuse University |
| Arizona | $68,272 | 3 | The University of Arizona Global Campus |
| California | $68,008 | 5 | California Baptist University |
| Indiana | $60,564 | 3 | Indiana University-Bloomington |
| Florida | $60,052 | 6 | Barry University |
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