2025 Best Design & Applied Arts Bachelor's Degree Schools in Rhode Island

Design & Applied Arts is of the hottest bachelor's degree programs in the United States, coming in as the #27 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 2 colleges and universities when compiling its 2025 Best Design & Applied Arts Bachelor's Degree Schools in Rhode Island ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 140 bachelor's degrees in design & applied arts during the 2022-2023 academic year.

Jump to one of the following sections: * Our Methodology

• Best Bachelor’s Degree Schools List

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 design & applied arts students vs. other majors.
• Major Demand - The number of design & applied arts 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 design & applied arts 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 design & applied arts related body.

Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for design & applied arts students working on their bachelor's degree.

More Ways to Rank Design & Applied Arts Schools

The design school you choose to invest your time and money in matters. To help you make the decision that is right for you, we've developed a number of major-specific rankings, including this list of the Best Design & Applied Arts Bachelor's Degree Schools in Rhode Island.

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 Design & Applied Arts in Rhode Island

The following list ranks the best colleges and universities for pursuing a bachelor's degree in design & applied arts.

Top Rhode Island Schools for a Bachelor's in Design

1

Rhode Island School of Design
Providence, RI

91 Annual Graduates

$29,489 Median Starting Salary

$49,773 Median Student Debt

Every student who is interested in a bachelor's degree in design & applied arts needs to look into Rhode Island School of Design. RISD is a small private not-for-profit school located in the midsize city of Providence.

Bachelor's students who receive their degree from the design program make about $29,489 in the first couple years of their career.

More information about a bachelor’s in design & applied arts from Rhode Island School of Design

2

New England Institute of Technology
East Greenwich, RI

22 Annual Graduates

$27,383 Median Starting Salary

New England Institute of Technology is one of the finest schools in the country for getting a bachelor's degree in design & applied arts. New England Tech is a small private not-for-profit school located in the suburb of East Greenwich.

Students who graduate with their bachelor's from the design program report average early career earnings of $27,383.

More information about a bachelor’s in design & applied arts from New England Institute of Technology

Best Design & Applied Arts Colleges in the New England Region

Explore all the Best Design & Applied Arts Schools in the New England Area or other specific states within that region.

State	Colleges	Degrees Awarded
Massachusetts	238	734
Connecticut	183	140
New Hampshire	157	442
Maine	156	24
Vermont	155	63

View All Rankings >

Design & Applied Arts Related Rankings by Major

Design & Applied Arts is one of 10 different types of Visual & Performing Arts programs to choose from.

Design Concentrations

Major	Annual Graduates
Illustration	91
Graphic Design	32
Game & Interactive Media Design	9
Interior Design	6
Industrial Design	2

Most Popular Majors Related to Design

Related Major	Annual Graduates
Fine & Studio Arts	264
Film, Video & Photographic Arts	114
Music	66
Drama & Theater Arts	61
Dance	7
General Visual & Performing Arts	5

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). More about our data sources and methodologies.