When it comes to popularity, a bachelor's degree in urban & regional planning sits in the middle of the road, ranking #178 out of 363 majors in the country. So, it might take a little more work to find colleges and universities that offer the degree program.
College Factual looked at 4 colleges and universities when compiling its 2025 Best Urban & Regional Planning Bachelor's Degree Schools in the Great Lakes Region ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 87 bachelor's degrees in urban & regional planning during the 2022-2023 academic year.
Choosing a Great Urban & Regional Planning School for Your Bachelor's Degree
Your choice of urban & regional planning for getting your bachelor's degree school matters. This section explores some of the factors we include in our ranking and how much they vary depending on the school you select. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.
A Great Overall School
A school that excels in educating for a particular major and degree level must be a great school overall as well. To make it into this list a school must rank well in our overall Best Colleges ranking. This ranking considered factors such as graduation rates, overall graduate earnings and other educational resources to identify great colleges and universities.
Early-Career Earnings
One measure we use to determine the quality of a school is to look at the average salary of bachelor's graduates during the early years of their career. That is, everyone wants their bachelor's degree to be worth something, and salaries are one measure of determining that.
Other Factors We Consider
In addition to the above, you should consider some of the following factors:
Major Focus - How much a school focuses on urban & regional planning students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - How many other urban & regional planning students want to attend this school to pursue a bachelor's degree.
Educational Resources - The amount of money and other resources allocated to students while they are pursuing their degree. These resources include such things as number of students per instructor and education expenditures per student.
Student Debt - How much debt urban & regional planning students go into to obtain their bachelor's degree and how well they are able to pay back that debt.
Accreditation - Whether a school is regionally accredited and/or accredited by a recognized urban & regional planning related body.
Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for urban & regional planning students working on their bachelor's degree.
Since picking the right college can be one of the most important decisions of your life, we've developed the Best Urban & Regional Planning Bachelor's Degree Schools in the Great Lakes Region ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.
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.
Best Schools for Bachelor’s Students to Study Urban & Regional Planning in the Great Lakes Region
The following list ranks the best colleges and universities for pursuing a bachelor's degree in urban & regional planning.
Top Great Lakes Region Schools for a Bachelor's in Urban Planning
Ohio State University - Main Campus is a great decision for students pursuing a bachelor's degree in urban & regional planning. Ohio State is a very large public university located in the city of Columbus.
Soon after graduation, urban planning bachelor's recipients usually earn about $41,501 in the first five years of their career.
It is difficult to beat University of Cincinnati - Main Campus if you wish to pursue a bachelor's degree in urban & regional planning. UC is a fairly large public university located in the city of Cincinnati.
Urban & Regional Planning bachelor's degree recipients from University of Cincinnati - Main Campus receive an earnings boost of about $3,341 over the typical earnings of urban & regional planning graduates.
Miami University - Oxford is a good choice for students pursuing a bachelor's degree in urban & regional planning. Miami University - Oxford is a fairly large public university located in the fringe town of Oxford.
Soon after graduating, urban planning bachelor's recipients usually earn an average of $40,721 in their early careers.
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).
Your choice of urban & regional planning for getting your bachelor's degree school matters. This section explores some of the factors we include in our ranking and how much they vary depending on the school you select. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.
