Master's Degrees in Military History

A master’s in military history is a graduate degree in how wars happen and what they leave behind. It’s a small field with a short list of schools, and that changes how you shop for it. This guide walks through the programs that actually award the degree, what they cost, how they differ, and where the credential leads. If you’re still finishing a bachelor’s, start with our military history degree guide instead.

What Is a Master’s in Military History?

The bachelor’s version of this field teaches you what happened in past wars. The master’s teaches you to argue about it professionally. You spend your time in the field’s long-running debates, reading how historians have interpreted the same campaign differently across a century, and then you produce research of your own from military records and primary sources.

The APUS curriculum shows the shape of it. Every student takes Historical Research Methods, Historiography, Studies in U.S. Military History, and a course called Great Military Philosophers, then spends 24 credits in one concentration. The concentration menu says a lot about what the field cares about: American Military History, the American Revolution, the Civil War, War Since 1945, and World War II.

Where You Can Earn a Master’s in Military History

The list is short, and the degrees themselves come from a very few places. Our directory tracks 10 master’s programs in military history, 4 of them fully online. Federal completions data shows just how top-heavy the market is. Here’s who actually awarded the degrees in 2021–22:

Where You Can Earn a Master's in Military History

School	Master’s degrees conferred
Norwich University	41
American Public University System	36
The Citadel	8
Austin Peay State University	1

Source: IPEDS completions data, CIP 54.0108, 2021–22.

Norwich alone accounted for nearly half of the country’s output that year. Add APUS and two schools produced roughly nine of every ten military history master’s degrees in America. Few graduate markets anywhere are this concentrated.

The smaller players are worth knowing about anyway. Kansas State runs a campus-based master’s in the field. The University of Louisiana at Monroe offers an online history MA with a military history concentration. Arizona State went narrower than anyone and built an entire M.A. in World War II Studies, a graduate degree devoted to a single conflict.

The Big Three, Compared

Since three schools dominate the search results and the diplomas, it’s worth putting them side by side.

Master’s in military history: Norwich, APUS, and The Citadel compared

Detail	Norwich	APUS	The Citadel
Credits	36	36	30
Typical length	About 18 months	Self-paced, monthly starts	Two years or less
Format	One 11-week course at a time, capped at 15 students	Four core courses plus a five-track concentration	Fully online, built around working professionals
Finish	Seminar sequence	Comprehensive exam, or a thesis by petition	Thesis and non-thesis paths

A few differences matter more than the table can show. Norwich takes up to 12 transfer credits and runs small seminars on a fixed calendar, which suits people who want structure. APUS lets you pick your war, since its five concentrations each go deep on one period or conflict. The Citadel pitches its program at a specific crowd, and says so plainly: armed forces officers, government and intelligence professionals, public historians, high school teachers, and people building a record for a PhD application.

How Much Does a Master’s in Military History Cost?

Less than most master’s degrees, at least at the schools that award nearly all of them. Published rates as of July 2026:

How Much Does a Master's in Military History Cost?

School	Credits	Per credit	Full tuition
APUS	36	$470, or $250 at the Preferred Military Rate	$16,920, or $9,000 military
Norwich	36	$550 to $725	$19,800 to $26,100
The Citadel	30	$720 for South Carolina residents, $1,040 otherwise	$21,600 resident, $31,200 non-resident

Rates from each school’s published tuition, July 2026; fees and books not included.

People shopping for this degree often ask whether $30,000 is a lot to pay for a master’s. In this field you mostly won’t get there. Only the Citadel’s non-resident total crosses that line, and the military rates pull costs down hard, as the APUS row shows. That pricing is no accident. These schools built their programs for military students, and the discounts are part of the design.

Master’s in Military History Admissions

Getting in is far less brutal than the field’s small size suggests. Norwich asks for a 2.75 undergraduate GPA and doesn’t require the GRE. The Citadel sets its floor at a 2.5, with a 3.0 in your major, one recommendation letter, and a short letter of intent. A traditional history MA wants a research writing sample and a faculty match, as our master’s in history guide explains. This field keeps the door simpler.

You don’t need a military history bachelor’s to apply, and most applicants won’t have one. A history degree, a social science degree, or years in uniform with an unrelated bachelor’s are all normal starting points.

What Can You Do with a Master’s in Military History?

The Citadel’s own list of who its program serves doubles as an honest career map: military officers deepening their profession, government and defense workers, intelligence analysts, public historians at every level of government, high school teachers adding a graduate credential, and students preparing for doctoral work in war studies. Museums, battlefield parks, and service historical offices round out the picture, and this master’s is the level those official historian jobs typically expect. Our military history degree guide covers the pay data for the field in detail.

Two honest cautions. Dedicated military-historian positions are scarce, so most graduates apply the degree inside a career they already have, teaching, analysis, or service among them. And university teaching takes more than this degree. That road runs through a doctorate, which our Ph.D. in history guide maps honestly.

Master’s in Military History FAQ