A Masters in Education Administration is the ideal degree for someone who aspires to reach a high level in the running and organization of an educational institution. The administering of a school is just as important as the actual in-classroom teaching work. As an educational administrator, you’ll help make sure the school you work at runs smoothly. In the long term, you may move into a role outside of a single school, helping to administer the operations of the school system as a whole at a local or national level.

Education administration is a specialty that has been offered for a long time at many of the US’s top education graduate schools, so there are plenty of high quality Masters programs to choose from.

Masters in Education Administration Degree Programs

We’ve taken a look at what’s on offer at some of the best schools in the country in the field of education administration. Here are the Masters program which we consider to be some of the best choices out their.

Harvard University’s Masters in Education program is highly respected by professional educators all over the world. Education administration can be studied as part of Harvard’s Masters in Higher Education course. This course of study will specifically prepare you for dealing with education admin tasks at the university level.

Vanderbilt University, which many top professionals openly call the best school in the graduate for graduate studies in education, also offers a specialization at the Masters level in Education Administration. Once again, this program is focused on teaching you the skills you’ll need to work in higher education institutions. Within the program there are five sub-specializations on offer, including an international focus and enrollment management – although if you want to keep your options open, you have the choice of doing general administration.

Stanford University has a couple of unique courses that may be of interest to an education administration specialist. One is IEAPA course – International Educational Administration and Policy Analysis. As you may be able to guess from the name, this course allows you to work on the international stage, taking a job with an international university or an education-related IGO (inter-governmental organization). The other program Stanford has that you might want to look into is the Policy, Organization and Leadership Studies course, which is closer to a general education administration course with some educational leadership elements blended in.

Online Masters in Education Administration

University of Massachusetts Online (UMassOnline) is one of the leaders for online Masters in Education programs in the US. Their Masters in Education Administration will provide you with a high quality degree while still giving a lot of flexibility to study when and where you want. The program is designed with professionals already working in the education sector in mind.

Kaplan University also has a program which blends educational leadership and administration. This program doesn’t just give you a theory grounding in the theories behind educational admin, it also gives you plenty of practical tools with which you can implement those theories in real life situations. This is particularly important for an online program – there’s little point in learning a lot of abstract material if you can’t apply it in real life.

Masters in Education Administration Requirements

Requirements for entry into a program differ a lot from grad school to grad school. Typically a graduate school will take into account your Bachelor’s degree, your GPA from previous studies and, depending on the course specifics, your experience working in the education sector to date.

Masters in Education Administration Salary

A Masters in Education Administration is one of the more lucrative degrees you can pursue in the education sector – admin jobs at a senior level often pay more than teaching roles. School administrators with a masters in education administration at secondary level and above typically earn between $70,000 and $75,000 a year.