Methodology · September 2026
How MPH Programs Are Verified and Ranked
Where Do the Program Facts Come From?
From each school's own website. 401 institutions were checked in September 2026; 324 have a current public health master's program and appear on the site, with 488 MPH programs and 297 related master's degrees. Accreditation comes from the CEPH list, program sizes from federal IPEDS data and pay from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Which Schools Were Checked
The starting list combined every school or program on the CEPH accredited list with every institution that reported public health master's completions (CIP 51.22) to the U.S. Department of Education's IPEDS survey for 2022–23. Schools that no longer offer a public health master's, or that have closed, are left off the site; their old pages redirect to the matching state page.
What Counts as a Program
A program is a degree path a student applies to: an online MPH and an on-campus MPH count separately when the school runs them separately. MPH programs are listed as MPHs. Related master's degrees in public health disciplines (MS, MSPH, MHS and MA degrees in fields such as epidemiology, biostatistics and global health) are listed as related degrees, so they can be compared without being confused with an MPH.
Program Facts
Format, credits, length, concentrations, GRE policy, application route, practicum and published tuition come from the school's own program, catalog, admissions and tuition pages. Tuition is shown in the school's own words, with its basis (per credit, per year, per term or total) and year. A detail is left out when the school's page doesn't state it.
Estimated Tuition
Where a school publishes both a per-credit rate and the credits a program requires, the site multiplies the two and labels the result "estimated tuition". It is tuition only, before fees, books and living costs, and it uses the lowest published rate, which at public schools is usually the in-state rate. Program pages and ranked lists also show the school's own tuition wording, so resident and nonresident rates stay visible.
How the Ranked Lists Work
Every ranked list states its measure above the list, and the order follows that measure alone. Cost rankings order CEPH-accredited programs by estimated tuition, lowest first, one program per school. The "one rate for every state" list only includes programs whose published rate doesn't change with residency. Size rankings order schools by public health master's degrees awarded in 2022–23 (IPEDS), which describes how established a program is, not its quality. Advertising never affects a ranking.
Accreditation
CEPH status comes from the CEPH list of accredited schools and programs, checked in September 2026. Where a school's own page says it is on probation, is an applicant or has withdrawn, the profile says so. A school's claim of accreditation never overrides the CEPH list.
Guides and Program-Type Pages
Guides, program-type, concentration, career and state pages are written from a data file of the site's verified program records plus facts read on official pages (CEPH, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Federal Student Aid, credential bodies, state agencies and schools' own sites). Each outside fact is recorded with the page it came from and the date it was checked. Automated checks confirm that every dollar figure and percentage traces to those records, and the build fails if a verified number changes and a page still quotes the old one.
Tools
The MPH cost and loan calculator applies the federal Direct Unsubsidized Loan rules for loans first disbursed from July 1, 2026 ($20,500 a year, $100,000 in total, 8.07% interest), estimates interest while you're in school as simple interest, and compares the payment with BLS median pay. The program matcher filters and scores the verified program records against your answers. The application timeline planner uses the SOPHAS Applicant Help Center's own timing advice. All three run in your browser; nothing you enter is sent to the site.
Careers and Pay
Wages come from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. Each career page names the exact BLS occupation behind its figures and shows the number of jobs beside each median. BLS doesn't report pay by degree, so salary pages report pay for the jobs MPH graduates commonly hold.
Who Checks the Site
The site is researched and edited by Taylor Rupe. Program facts are reviewed at least every six months. Sponsored listings are supplied by advertisers and never affect which programs appear or how they rank. To report an error, use the contact form.