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

If you pursue a bachelor's degree in design & applied arts, you won't be alone. The field of study is the #27 most popular program in the country. This makes choosing the right school a hard decision.

For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 4 schools in Maryland to determine which ones were the best for design & applied arts students pursuing a bachelor's degree. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 213 bachelor's degrees in design & applied arts during the 2022-2023 academic year.

What's on this page: * Our Methodology

• Best Bachelor’s Degree Schools List

Choosing a Great Design & Applied Arts School for Your Bachelor's Degree

Your choice of design & applied arts for getting your bachelor's degree school matters. Important measures of a quality design program can vary widely even among the top schools. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:

Quality Overall Is Important

The overall quality of a bachelor's degree school is important to ensure a good education, not just how well they do in a particular major. To take this into account we consider a school's overall Best Colleges ranking which itself looks at a host of various factors like degree completion, educational resources, student body caliber and post-graduation earnings for the school as a whole.

Average Earnings

To determine the overall quality of a graduate school, one factor we look at is the average early-career salary of those receiving their bachelor's degree from the school. This is because one of the main reasons people pursue their bachelor's degree is to enable themselves to find better-paying positions.

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 design & applied arts students as compared to other majors.
• Major Demand - How many other design & applied arts students want to attend this school to pursue a bachelor's degree.
• 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 design & applied arts 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 design & applied arts related body.

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

One Size Does Not Fit All

Since picking the right college can be one of the most important decisions of your life, we've developed the Best Design & Applied Arts Bachelor's Degree Schools in Maryland ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.

In addition to College Factual's rankings, you may want to take a look at College Combat, our unique tool that lets you pit your favorite schools head-to-head and compare how they rate on factors that most interest you. When you have some time, check it out - you may want to bookmark the link so you don't forget it.

Best Schools for Bachelor’s Students to Study Design & Applied Arts in Maryland

Below you'll see a list of the best colleges and universities for pursuing a bachelor's degree in design & applied arts.

Top Maryland Schools for a Bachelor's in Design

1

Maryland Institute College of Art
Baltimore, MD

113 Annual Graduates

$27,246 Median Starting Salary

$89,748 Median Student Debt

Maryland Institute College of Art is a good option for students pursuing a bachelor's degree in design & applied arts. MICA is a small private not-for-profit college located in the city of Baltimore.

After graduation, design bachelor's recipients generally earn about $27,246 in the first five years of their career.

More information about a bachelor’s in design & applied arts from Maryland Institute College of Art

2

Stevenson University
Owings Mills, MD

28 Annual Graduates

$27,969 Median Starting Salary

$47,300 Median Student Debt

Stevenson University is a good decision for students interested in a bachelor's degree in design & applied arts. Located in the suburb of Owings Mills, Stevenson is a private not-for-profit university with a small student population.

Bachelor's graduates who receive their degree from the design program earn an average of $27,969 in the first couple years of working.

More information about a bachelor’s in design & applied arts from Stevenson University

3

University of Maryland - Baltimore County
Baltimore, MD

17 Annual Graduates

$34,020 Median Starting Salary

It's difficult to beat University of Maryland - Baltimore County if you wish to pursue a bachelor's degree in design & applied arts. UMBC is a large public university located in the large suburb of Baltimore.

Bachelor's recipients from the design & applied arts program at University of Maryland - Baltimore County earn $4,275 above the typical graduate in this field when they enter the workforce.

More information about a bachelor’s in design & applied arts from University of Maryland - Baltimore County

4

Bowie State University
Bowie, MD

43 Annual Graduates

Every student who is interested in a bachelor's degree in design & applied arts has to check out Bowie State University. Bowie State University is a moderately-sized public university located in the large suburb of Bowie.More information about a bachelor’s in design & applied arts from Bowie State University

Best Design & Applied Arts Colleges in the Middle Atlantic Region

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

State	Colleges	Degrees Awarded
New York	275	2,536
Pennsylvania	274	991
New Jersey	193	358
Delaware	130	25
District of Columbia	126	39

View All Rankings >

Rankings in Majors Related to Design

One of 10 majors within the Visual & Performing Arts area of study, Design & Applied Arts has other similar majors worth exploring.

Design Focus Areas

Major	Annual Graduates
Illustration	90
Visual Communications	79
Fashion Design	9
Industrial Design	8
Commercial & Advertising Art	7
Game & Interactive Media Design	7
Other Design & Applied Arts	7
Interior Design	5
Graphic Design	1

Most Popular Related Majors

Related Major	Annual Graduates
Fine & Studio Arts	514
Music	212
Drama & Theater Arts	137
Dance	60
Film, Video & Photographic Arts	50
General Visual & Performing Arts	5
Other Visual Art	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.