a bachelor's degree in materials engineering is more popular than many other degrees. In fact, it ranks #145 out of 363 on popularity of all such degrees in the nation. So, you have a fair amount of options to choose from when looking for a school.
In 2024, College Factual analyzed 3 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Materials Engineering Bachelor's Degree Schools in the Southwest Region ranking. Combined, these schools handed out 96 bachelor's degrees in materials engineering to qualified students.
Choosing a Great Materials Engineering School for Your Bachelor's Degree
Your choice of materials engineering 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. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
Overall Quality Is a Must
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.
Average Early-Career Salaries
Average early-career salary of those graduating with their bachelor's degree is one indicator we use in our analysis to find the schools that offer the highest-quality education. After all, your bachelor's degree won't mean much if it doesn't help you find a job that will help you earn a living.
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 materials engineering students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - The number of materials engineering students who choose to seek a bachelor's degree at the school.
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 materials engineering 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 materials engineering related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for materials engineering 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 Materials Engineering Bachelor's Degree Schools in the Southwest Region list, to help you choose the best school for you.
To further help you make the college decision, we've developed a unique tool called College Combat that allows you to compare schools based on the factors that matter the most to you.
Go ahead and give it a try, or bookmark the link so you can check it out later.
Best Schools for Bachelor’s Students to Study Materials Engineering in the Southwest Region
Below you'll see a list of the best colleges and universities for pursuing a bachelor's degree in materials engineering.
Top Southwest Region Schools for a Bachelor's in Materials Engineering
Any student who is interested in a bachelor's degree in materials engineering needs to look into Arizona State University - Tempe. ASU - Tempe is a fairly large public university located in the midsize city of Tempe.
Bachelor's recipients from the materials engineering program at Arizona State University - Tempe get $12,290 more than the average graduate in this field shortly after graduation.
It's difficult to beat University of North Texas if you want to pursue a bachelor's degree in materials engineering. Located in the medium-sized city of Denton, UNT is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Bachelor's students who receive their degree from the materials engineering program make an average of $41,942 in the first couple years of working.
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).