Fortune Education ranked Oregon State University’s online Master in Public Health program fifth in the nation for 2025, above top contenders like Columbia University and Johns Hopkins University. Directors say OSU’s program, which started in 2018, exemplifies the university’s land grant mission by working to serve communities across Oregon.
“It’s exciting. The faculty work so hard, and we’ve had a lot of growth in the program,” said Jill Hoxmeier, director of the online MPH program within OSU’s College of Health. “It’s nice to be recognized.”
The online program is the Public Health Practice master’s degree and was designed to train students to do applied work in a wide range of disciplines under the public health umbrella, Hoxmeier said. Its faculty include instructors from epidemiology, health behavior and promotion, biostatistics, environmental and occupational health, global health and health systems and policy.
In the on-campus Master in Public Health, students pick one discipline to specialize in, while the online program is more of an amalgamation, Hoxmeier said.
Students who graduate with a master’s in public health may go on to work in a variety of fields, such as at city, county or state health departments and non-governmental organizations. The online program provides flexibility for students who are currently working full-time jobs, including many at OSU Extension, so they can fit the coursework into their schedule.
“We have students who have been working in public health but want to go into a different skillset or want to go into a higher level within their own organization. We have students who are in health care as practitioners — nurses, doctors — and they’re seeing the benefit of having a public health perspective within their own work,” Hoxmeier said.
Training students who are passionate about public health is more important now than ever, she said.
“Particularly in our country as we’re seeing inequities worsen and some challenges around support at the federal level for public health, there are so many opportunities,” she said. “We absolutely need people with the skills to be doing this work.”
The online program has 31 new students this year, for a total enrollment of 70.
“As a land grant university, being able to reach communities throughout the state was really important and unique for our Master in Public Health program, and having an online MPH allows us to do that, especially if folks are not willing or able to move to Corvallis,” said Jonathan Garcia, director of the on-campus MPH program and an associate professor of global health.
The OSU connection to Extension has also provided opportunities for internships and jobs for MPH students and graduates, he said. The program’s internship coordinator, Tonya Johnson, has brought experience and connections from her previous work at Extension to help students engage with communities around the state.
Overall, while Fortune uses an algorithm to determine programs’ scores, OSU directors attribute their ranking to the longtime online education expertise of Ecampus, the flexibility the online program affords students all over the world, and the program’s intentional focus on practical public health applications.
Garcia said Oregon also draws students who are interested in the work OSU faculty are doing work that is tailored to areas like gender affirming care, research for how to support cancer survivors in Latine communities or tackling clean water and sanitation in rural communities.
“There’s something special about Oregon as a state in terms of its focus on health equity, and it draws people from other states,” he said. “The fact that with an online degree, you can access that group of faculty while living in a context where that’s available, makes it special as well.”
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