2024 Best Colleges for Engineering

SUMMARY

Going to school for Engineering is a valuable choice and ordinarily a needed first step for undergrads hoping to pursue a career as a mechanical engineer, an electrical engineer, or a manufacturing systems engineer. In fact, engineering is an extremely popular degree choice, coming in at the 3rd most popular area of study. Last academic year, there were 128,724 engineering diplomas received. In-state tuition for engineering at private universities is, on average, 3.9 times more expensive than their public counterparts.

There are 674 institutions which offer engineering. This number of colleges is on par with other majors offered in the United States. If you're looking to immerse yourself with other engineering undergrads, look at institutions in California which have more students admitted to engineering than any other state. More generally, the best region to study engineering is in the Southeast region with Georgia Institute of Technology-Main Campus, North Carolina State University at Raleigh, and Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University best representing the region. Interestingly, our pick of the best conference to major in engineering is the Big Ten Conference with University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Pennsylvania State University-Main Campus, and Purdue University-Main Campus representing the conference. From our extensive list on the best colleges, our selection for the best university for engineering is Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The 'best' school might not actually be the best school for you. There can be tons of facets to consider when selecting ​university. External stuff such as campus amenities, transportation services, and food could definitely change your inclinations of which school to attend. Here at authority.org, we weighed the pros and cons for you. If, for example, you want to know which engineering university is home to the top campus, the winner is Northeastern University. If, for example, you are very interested in which college is home to the top campus, we have an entire list dedicated to that. We have carefully pored through government databases, student reviews, professor reviews, and more so we can compare all U.S. majors in an unbiased and informative way. Here you can find our comprehensive list for the schools with the best student life&nbspand our selection for the university with the best student life for engineering is Cornell University. Are you curious why? Keep scrolling to learn more about our top recommendations. Many of our decisions might shock you.

If cost is a primary deciding factor in your decisions, you might be cautious about Columbia University in the City of New York. Columbia University in the City of New York&nbspis our most expensive college for engineering, at least regarding out of state attendance. That being said, we have a page for the most expensive&nbspschools that could put the price tag at Columbia University in the City of New York&nbspinto perspective. For more context, you may care to know that engineering is the 54th most expensive program in America, with an average bill of $48,000. On a broader scale, the most expensive state for engineering in the country is Massachusetts with tuition and fees at the primary three institutions of $54,720 at Boston University, totalling $53,940 at Smith College, and tuition and fees amounting to $53,940 at Tufts University. To zoom out even further, the most costly region of the country for engineering is the New England region which is best demonstrated with Trinity College with a cost of $56,380, Tufts University with a cost of $57,324, and Brown University with a cost of $57,112.

Our cheapest region for engineering is the Rocky Mountains region which is represented by Colorado Technical University-Colorado Springs with a cost of $11,896, Brigham Young University-Idaho with a cost of $4,208, and Brigham Young University-Provo with a cost of $5,790. In better news, the most affordable college for engineering is University of Florida. Authority.org's comprehensive list of the most affordable colleges can be found here.

In-state students can anticipate paying about $10,400 for a degree in engineering. The cost grows substantially to an average of $24,200 for an out-of-state public-school student. As such, you might be interested in our pick for the school with the best value for engineering: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Here you can find our comprehensive list about the universities we see as being the best value&nbspoverall. With that said, this idea is predicated on being an out-of-state student. The value proposition changes when it comes to in-state tuition, but as we do not know what state(s) you might qualify for in-state tuition, we are approaching this discussion through out-of-state tuition costs.

Earnings for engineering majors range widely, but within two-years of graduation graduates will typically earn around $72,100. There can be a lot of variation in pay; highest paid earners can bring in up to $108,400. Even straight out of university, the lowest earning opportunities within the engineering field make $48,900, which could be worse. The top earning grads for engineering have come from Massachusetts Institute of Technology&nbspand if you are looking for colleges with all of the highest earning graduates, Authority has that too.

The all-around diversity of engineering ranks pretty high, ranking within the 81st percentile of all majors. The college with the most composite diversity for engineering is Massachusetts Institute of Technology&nbspand here you can find our general list of the colleges with the most diversity. The overall financial diversity of the Engineering major is only within the 24th percentile of all majors. Racial diversity is greater than financial diversity, ranking in the 82nd percentile. White students make up the largest share at 46% of those studying engineering. Additionally, 74% of students pursuing an engineering degree are men.

The median rating for engineering's professors is 3.8 stars, a ranking that is 5% lower than the median for all majors; which is a subpar ranking. If you want to find the most popular engineering professor in the nation, take a look at Adam Reed from University of Nevada-Reno. It might surprise you, but the highest rated professors of engineering from student rankings come from New Jersey Institute of Technology. If we incorporate data beyond simply rankings it becomes clear that the university with comprehensively the best instructors for engineering is Massachusetts Institute of Technology. You can find an explanation of our evolving ranking methodology of the best overall professors here, as well as many of the top examples of professors in the U.S.

Finally, the most difficult school to get into for engineering is Stanford University. While we do not necessarily see the value in it, we have a general page for the hardest colleges to get into. That being said, here at Authority we do hope you understand that approaching the education process from context primarily built on superlatives might create problems. We at Authority hope you read our other pages on different topics and read a couple of our background pages on essential details to think about as your school search continues.