Computer Programming is above average in terms of popularity with it being the #129 most popular bachelor's degree program in the country. As a result, there are many college that offer the degree, making your choice of school a hard one.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 4 schools in the Plains States Region to determine which ones were the best for computer programming students pursuing a bachelor's degree. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 218 bachelor's degrees in computer programming during the 2022-2023 academic year.
Choosing a Great Computer Programming School for Your Bachelor's Degree
The programming bachelor's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. 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 computer programming students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - How many other computer programming 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 easy is it for computer programming to pay back their student loans after receiving their bachelor's degree.
Accreditation - Whether a school is regionally accredited and/or accredited by a recognized computer programming related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for computer programming students working on their bachelor's degree.
Since the program you select can have a significant impact on your future, we've developed a number of rankings, including this Best Computer Programming Bachelor's Degree Schools in the Plains States Region list, to help you choose the best school for you.
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 Computer Programming in the Plains States Region
Below you'll see a list of the best colleges and universities for pursuing a bachelor's degree in computer programming.
Top Plains States Region Schools for a Bachelor's in Programming
Any student who is interested in a bachelor's degree in computer programming needs to check out Bellevue University. Bellevue University is a fairly large private not-for-profit university located in the large suburb of Bellevue.
Those computer programming students who get their bachelor's degree from Bellevue University make $11,013 more than the average programming graduate.
Southwestern College is a wonderful choice for students pursuing a bachelor's degree in computer programming. SC is a small private not-for-profit college located in the distant town of Winfield.
Bachelor's students who receive their degree from the programming program earn an average of $56,305 in their early career salary.
Every student who is interested in a bachelor's degree in computer programming has to take a look at Fort Hays State University. FHSU is a fairly large public university located in the town of Hays.
Bachelor's students who receive their degree from the programming program earn about $57,162 in their early career salary.
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).