Architecture is of the hottest degree programs in the United States, coming in as the #147 most popular major in the country. This means there are lots of options to choose from when you decide to get your degree.
College Factual looked at 3 colleges and universities when compiling its 2025 Best Architecture Schools in Illinois ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 164 degrees in architecture annually.
The architecture program you select can have a big impact on your future. That's why we developed our collection of Best Schools for Architecture rankings. In order to come up with a best overall ranking for architecture schools, we combine our degree-level rankings, weighting them by the number of degrees awarded at each level.
In order to find the schools that are the best fit for you, you may want to filter to one of the degree levels below.
When choosing the right school for you, it's important to arm yourself with all the facts you can. To that end, we've created a number of major-specific rankings, including this Best Architecture Schools in Illinois list to help you make the college decision.
If you'd like to restrict your choices to just one part of the country, you can filter this list by location.
In addition to our rankings, you can take two colleges and compare them based on the criteria that matters most to you in our unique tool, College Combat.
Test it out when you get a chance! You may also want to bookmark the link and share it with others who are trying to make the college decision.
The schools below may not offer all types of architecture degrees so you may want to filter by degree level first. However, they are great for the degree levels they do offer.
It is hard to beat Southern Illinois University Carbondale if you want to pursue a degree in architecture. Located in the distant town of Carbondale, SIUC is a public university with a fairly large student population. This university ranks 36th out of 85 colleges for overall quality in the state of Illinois.
There were approximately 61 architecture students who graduated with this degree at SIUC in the most recent data year.
University of Illinois at Chicago is one of the finest schools in the United States for getting a degree in architecture. Located in the city of Chicago, UIC is a public university with a very large student population. A Best Colleges rank of #254 out of 2,152 schools nationwide means UIC is a great university overall.
There were approximately 71 architecture students who graduated with this degree at UIC in the most recent year we have data available.
It's difficult to beat Judson University if you want to pursue a degree in architecture. Located in the medium-sized city of Elgin, Judson is a private not-for-profit university with a small student population. This university ranks 38th out of 85 colleges for overall quality in the state of Illinois.
There were approximately 32 architecture students who graduated with this degree at Judson in the most recent year we have data available.
Architecture is one of 3 different types of General Architecture programs to choose from.
Notes and References
The bars on the spread charts above show the distribution of the schools on this list +/- one standard deviation from the mean.
The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), a branch of the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) serves as the core of the rest of our data about colleges.
Some other college data, including much of the graduate earnings data, comes from the U.S. Department of Education’s (College Scorecard).
Credit for the banner image above goes to Danichou.
The architecture program you select can have a big impact on your future. That's why we developed our collection of Best Schools for Architecture rankings. In order to come up with a best overall ranking for architecture schools, we combine our degree-level rankings, weighting them by the number of degrees awarded at each level.
