Graduate school may be a critical step in your higher education, whether you are interested in expanding your knowledge, learning a specialization, or earning advanced credentials required by your profession. The best graduate schools in Georgia offer advanced degrees, such as master’s and doctoral degrees, as well as opportunities for independent research, mentorships, and professional networking.
Georgia has 70 colleges and universities, 38 of which are public institutions. The University of Georgia, located in the city of Athens, is the largest, with over 35,000 students. Those attending Georgia State University and Georgia Southern University will enter into a friendly athletics rivalry. Tuition at Georgia State costs $9,000, and at Georgia Southern, $6,000. Of the 20 religiously affiliated schools, Emory University has both the highest tuition, just over $50,000, and student population, with over 13,000 in attendance. Whether you’re looking to earn your associate, bachelor’s, master’s, or doctoral degree, Georgia schools offer plenty of options.
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Students can earn degrees in religious studies, business, social work, law, and computer science. Those looking to attend technical colleges can also choose from a handful of schools that offer two-year degrees in medicine, nursing, and education. Part of the University System of Georgia, Atlanta Metropolitan State college is the state’s most affordable college at $3,000, and its students can major in fields like mathematics, criminal justice, and philosophy.
The Blue Ridge Mountains, oak and hickory forests, and the Atlantic Coastal Plain all make their home in Georgia, but the state’s most notable landform is the Okefenokee Swamp, the largest such water-mass in North America. This diverse landscape in The Peach State provides Georgia’s college and graduate students with a beautiful backdrop for an education.
Georgia also offers a loan repayment program for qualifying graduates in the medical field through the Georgia Board of Health Care Workforce. Check out the best degree programs and top career paths this southern state has to offer.
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There are 11 doctorate-granting universities in Georgia, 5 of which meet our criteria. The top 5 graduate schools below are composed of both private and public schools that satisfy the following four conditions:
The people affiliated with a school are ultimately what make it great. This is why influence gets at the heart of what is truly best in education. At the undergraduate level, the best colleges and universities are those with the highest concentration of influence. Our Concentrated Influence metric adjusts overall influence by size of undergraduate student body, thus allowing smaller schools to compete with larger schools so long as they have proportionately as strong influential faculty and alums.
But at the graduate level, the combined influence score of a college or university’s top academic influencers is the best indicator of academic excellence. Overall influence, and not influence controlled by other variables, thus becomes the best gauge of academic excellence at the graduate level. Where smaller size is an advantage at the undergraduate level (hence Concentrated Influence), graduate studies benefit from a large and vibrant community of graduate students, who promise to become the new generation of academic influencers.
If you are serious about finding the best graduate schools, you should be asking where the most influential professors are teaching, and whether their graduates themselves are advancing the school’s reputation for academic excellence. Most ranking sites rely on an opaque combination of reputation surveys and arbitrary performance metrics. Influence, as measured by our InfluenceRanking engine, provides a ranking that is free from bias, insulated from manipulation, and reflective of real-world educational outcomes.
Find out more about our methodology here.
Less Tuition + fees
$54K
Acceptance
19%
Graduation
90%
Student body
13K
Median SAT/ACT
1445/32
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Emory University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$13K
Acceptance
21%
Graduation
91%
Student body
30K
Median SAT/ACT
1405/31
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Georgia Tech’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$12K
Acceptance
48%
Graduation
87%
Student body
38K
Median SAT/ACT
1330/29
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University of Georgia’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$9K
Acceptance
82%
Graduation
53%
Student body
33K
Median SAT/ACT
1155/23
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Georgia State University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$26K
Acceptance
78%
Graduation
73%
Student body
7K
Median SAT/ACT
1255/27
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Mercer University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$6K
Acceptance
91%
Graduation
54%
Student body
24K
Median SAT/ACT
1125/22
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Georgia Southern University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$6K
Acceptance
78%
Graduation
44%
Student body
12K
Median SAT/ACT
1000/20
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University of West Georgia’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$27K
Acceptance
70%
Graduation
43%
Student body
2K
Median SAT/ACT
1060/21
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Piedmont University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
What are Custom College Rankings?
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