Discover Early Childhood EDU Releases the Best Master’s Programs for ECE

Today, Discover Early Childhood EDU announces its list of the Top 64 Early Childhood Education Master’s Programs. The list is intended to help college graduates find the best ECE graduate program for them. Discover Early Childhood hopes that students will find a program that offers the perfect balance of academic excellence, value, and personal growth. The website is a premier website for higher education information and resources, utilized a team of researchers who applied a proprietary ranking system to generate the list.

Discover Early Childhood EDU’s researchers wanted to arrive at a list that was informative and free from bias. Though each student has their own set of personal criteria to apply, the team’s objective standards can act as a reliable measure of academic excellence and educational value. In fact, the website’s standards blend academic metrics with financial concerns to arrive at ratings that provide students with a balanced view.

Discover Early Childhood gathered its raw data from independent and government sources so that researchers could be assured of the utmost objectivity. The team then applied the proprietary formula to the data. Researchers used data related to topics such as retention rates, graduation rates, cost of education, average salary for alumni, and acceptance rates, among others.

Some of the top colleges that made the list of the Top 64 early childhood graduate programs in the United States are: San Diego State University, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, George Mason University, University of Georgia, University of Massachusetts-Boston, Capella University and Boston University.

Retention rates were chosen as a key indicator of educational value because they measure student interest and excitement for a graduate program. That is, they show the percentage of students who decide to continue a program after the first year. The consensus is that, if students return in future years, then they have already found academic value and expect to find more.

Closely tied to retention is graduation rates, which demonstrates how many incoming students stay, study, and eventually graduate from the program. Higher graduation rates tell incoming scholars that the cohort they begin with will likely stick around until they complete the degree. This sort of consistency and cohesion can be vital to a fulfilling educational experience. After all, education is about more than classroom information. Graduate school is also about forming a community of like-minded professionals who may become close colleagues and even collaborators in the working world.

While early childhood education is a field for passionate learners who wish nothing more than to enrich the lives of young students, graduate students also need to consider finances. With that in mind, Discover Early Childhood EDU’s researchers gathered information on the overall cost of education. When that figure was weighed against other metrics, such as retention and graduation rates, researchers could get a clearer view of the overall value a program presented for its students.

Closely tied to the cost of education is the relative return on investment (ROI) for early childhood education graduate students. To measure this, Discover Early Childhood compared alumni salaries against the cost of education. While most ECE students will be bound by salaries set by state governments or local school boards, future students need to enter into their education with a clear view of the financial ramifications of their graduate work. After all, the thinking is that students from stronger schools will be recruited by school systems that are able to provide better pay.

To round out the findings, Discover Early Childhood factored in other elements like online reviews and whether or not schools offered online courses, if not entire degree programs. After all, it is valuable to see what current and former students have to say about the programs. The website was also interested to include those programs that offer education in a more flexible online, or hybrid, format.

Nevertheless, Discover Early Childhood EDU acknowledges that the ratings system applied is not the only standard students should apply when seeking out a master's program. To the contrary, researchers worked hard to provide unbiased, objective ratings so that students could apply their own, individual educational standards. For instance, some may appreciate coursework that emphasizes special education, bilingual education, or ESL. Others may simply want to find an affordable, general early childhood education program in their state or local area, but don't want to skimp too much on academics. Sometimes, students make a decision based on class size. The list of subjective criteria is nearly endless. However, each graduate student can balance their preferences against Discover Early Childhood’s unbiased ratings system.

Discover Early Childhood EDU is a website dedicated to helping students and institutions of higher learning advance the cause of learning and education. Through the information made available, students and universities can find one another to the betterment of them all.