Last updated: February 3, 2021
When choosing a healthcare administration degree, students should weigh several critical factors to find the program that best suits their needs. We have created these rankings as a tool to help each degree-seeker find their ideal program.
Our rankings weigh factors, such as academic quality, program flexibility and availability, and affordability to objectively assess a school's overall merit. We input data from national databases into a unique formula to determine how each school ranks based on those factors.
We keep our rankings free of editorial influence for added reliability. Though not comprehensive or inclusive of every school that offers a specific program, our rankings offer a helpful resource for students as they research programs and compare schools.
Here, we break down our ranking process, including data sources and how we weigh different factors to provide the most accurate and objective rankings.
About Our Data
We aim to provide objective rankings that offer prospective students reliable and useful information. To create reliable rankings and ensure transparency, we pull data from reputable national resources. These resources are publicly available and accessible to anyone.
We primarily pull data from the National Center for Education Statistics. This source provides comprehensive data about higher education institutions, including admissions, enrollment, graduation rates, financial aid, and student outcomes. Our team assesses schools included in the datasets and excludes any institutions missing significant amounts of data. This allows us to keep our calculations as accurate as possible.
Prospective enrollees can freely access our data sources and further evaluate how we make our calculations. We pulled the data used in these rankings in December 2020.
A Breakdown of Our Ranking Factors and Subfactors
Our primary ranking factors include quality, affordability, and online flexibility and availability. The table below further explores how we weigh factors and subfactors to calculate a score for each school.
General Rankings
| Metric | Weight |
|---|---|
| Academics | 40% |
| Affordability | 25% |
| Reputation | 20% |
| Program Selection | 15% |
Affordability Rankings
| Metric | Weight |
|---|---|
| Academics | 15% |
| Affordability | 50% |
| Reputation | 20% |
| Program Selection | 15% |
Subfactors for Academics:
- Graduation rate
- Retention rate
- Student-to-faculty ratio
Subfactors for Affordability:
- Average net price for students awarded grant or scholarship aid
- Federal student aid default loan rate
- Average amount of federal student loans awarded to undergraduate students
- Average amount of grant and scholarship aid awarded
- Median debt for graduates (six years after entering)
Subfactors for Reputation:
- Percent admitted total
- Admissions yield total
- Mean earnings of graduates six years after enrolling
Subfactors for Program Selection:
- Percent of students enrolled in online programs at degree level
- Percent of students enrolled online overall
- Percent of students enrolled at degree level