2025 Best Materials Engineering Doctor's Degree Schools in Illinois

If you plan on getting your doctor's degree in materials engineering, you won't be alone since the degree program is ranked #40 in the country in terms of popularity. So, you have a fair amount of options to choose from when looking for a school.

In 2025, College Factual analyzed 2 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Materials Engineering Doctor's Degree Schools in Illinois ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 68 doctor's degrees in materials engineering during the 2022-2023 academic year.

What's on this page: * Our Methodology

• Best Doctor’s Degree Schools List

Average Early-Career Salaries

Average early-career salary of those graduating with their doctor's degree is one indicator we use in our analysis to find the schools that offer the highest-quality education. That is, everyone wants their doctor's degree to be worth something, and salaries are one measure of determining that.

Other Factors We Consider

The metrics below are just some of the other metrics that we use to determine our rankings.

• Major Focus - How many resources a school devotes to materials engineering students as compared to other majors.
• Major Demand - The number of materials engineering students who choose to seek a doctor's degree at the school.
• Educational Resources - How many resources are allocated to students. These resources may include educational expenditures per student, number of students per instructor, and graduation rate among other things.
• Student Debt - How much debt materials engineering students go into to obtain their doctor'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 materials engineering related body.

Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for materials engineering students working on their doctor's degree.

More Ways to Rank Materials Engineering Schools

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 Materials Engineering Doctor's Degree Schools in Illinois list to help you make the college decision.

Best Schools for Doctorate Students to Study Materials Engineering in Illinois

Learn about the top ranked colleges and universities for materials engineering students seeking a a doctor's degree.

Top Illinois Schools for a Doctorate in Materials Engineering

1

Northwestern University
Evanston, IL

38 Annual Graduates

Northwestern University is a good decision for individuals interested in a doctor's degree in materials engineering. Located in the small city of Evanston, Northwestern is a private not-for-profit university with a very large student population.More information about a doctorate in materials engineering from Northwestern University

2

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Champaign, IL

25 Annual Graduates

Every student who is interested in a doctor's degree in materials engineering needs to check out University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. UIUC is a fairly large public university located in the city of Champaign.More information about a doctorate in materials engineering from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Best Materials Engineering Colleges in the Great Lakes Region

Explore all the Best Materials Engineering Colleges in the Great Lakes Area or other specific states within that region.

State	Colleges	Degrees Awarded
Michigan	149	26
Ohio	144	28
Indiana	132	41
Wisconsin	108	11

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Rankings in Majors Related to Materials Engineering

Materials Engineering is one of 41 different types of Engineering programs to choose from.

Materials Engineering Concentrations

Major	Annual Graduates
General Materials Engineering	68

Most Popular Majors Related to Materials Engineering

Related Major	Annual Graduates
Electrical Engineering	96
Mechanical Engineering	89
Chemical Engineering	73
Biomedical Engineering	50
Civil Engineering	46
Industrial Engineering	20
Aerospace & Aeronautical Engineering	12
Nuclear Engineering	9
Engineering Mechanics	6
Agricultural Engineering	4

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 Panoramedia. More about our data sources and methodologies.