2024 Best Colleges for Environmental Design

SUMMARY

Studying Environmental Design is a valuable choice and often a necessary first step for undergrads trying to enter a career as a sustainability consultant, an environmental designer, or an energy engineer. In fact, nationally, environmental design is a very rare major ranking as the 259th most popular degree. In the last year, there were 591 environmental design graduates. In-state tuition for environmental design at private schools is, on average, 4.5 times more expensive than their public fellows.

With just 34 schools having programs for this degree there might be a smaller selection of institutions you can choose from. If you're hoping to surround yourself with other environmental design students, consider looking at schools in Colorado which have the most students admitted to environmental design annually. More generally, the top region to get a degree in environmental design is in the Rocky Mountains region with University of Colorado Boulder and Utah State University best representing the region. Interestingly, our selection for the top conference to major in environmental design is the Pacific-12 Conference with Arizona State University-Tempe, University of California-Berkeley, and University of Colorado Boulder representing the conference. That said, our selection for the best school for environmental design is University of California-Berkeley. You might also want to check out our list of the best colleges.

The overall best school does not have to be the 'best' school for you. There are a bunch more angels to think about when deciding on ​university. External stuff like campus amenities, transportation services, and food could definitely modify your decision of where to go to university. At authority.org, we've evaluated the pros and cons for you. If, for example, you want to know which environmental design school is home to the top campus, the winner is Rutgers University-New Brunswick. If, for example, you are very interested in which university boasts the finest campus, we have a whole page dedicated to that. We have carefully pored through student reviews, government databases, professor reviews, and more in order to evaluate every major in the United States in an unbiased and informative way. Here you can explore our well researched list for the colleges with the best student life&nbspand, from that list, our selection of the school with the best student life for environmental design is Massachusetts College of Art and Design. Are you curious why? Continue reading to learn more about our top selections. Some of our picks might shock you.

If expense is a major deciding factor in your decisions, you might consider avoiding Maryland Institute College of Art. Maryland Institute College of Art&nbspappears to be our most expensive school for environmental design, at least for out of state students. We have an entire page for the most expensive&nbspuniversities that might put the cost of Maryland Institute College of Art&nbspinto perspective. For more context, you might want to know that environmental design is the 266th most expensive major in the nation, with an average associated cost of $26,200. To zoom out a little, the most expensive state for environmental design in the country is Maryland demonstrated with a cost of $48,510 at Maryland Institute College of Art. Even more broadly, the most costly region of the U.S. for environmental design is the Far West region which is best demonstrated with University of California-Berkeley with a cost of $41,196, Otis College of Art and Design with a cost of $45,200, and University of Hawaii at Manoa with a cost of $33,336.

Our cheapest region for environmental design is the Great Lakes region which is represented by Bowling Green State University-Main Campus with a cost of $17,267. In better news, the most affordable college for environmental design is University of Puerto Rico-Rio Piedras. Our full list of the most affordable universities can be found here.

In-state learners can anticipate paying about $10,900 for a degree in environmental design. That cost grows by a lot to an average of $27,000 for the out-of-state public-school undergrad. On that note, our pick for the college representing the best value for environmental design: University of California-Berkeley. On this page you can see our comprehensive list about the colleges we see as being the best value&nbspoverall. Do know, this section is predicated on out-of-state tuition costs. The value proposition changes when in-state tuition costs are considered, 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 environmental design majors differ widely, but within two years leaving college graduates will typically make around $58,900. There is much variation in earnings; highest paid earners can rake in up to $88,200. Right out of university, the minimum earning opportunities within the environmental design field make $39,100, which isn't that bad. The highest earning grads for environmental design have come from University of California-Berkeley&nbspand if you are looking for colleges with all of the highest earning graduates, Authority has that too.

The overall diversity of environmental design ranks high, coming within the 80th percentile of majors nationally. The college with the highest composite diversity for environmental design is Maryland Institute College of Art&nbspand here you can find our general list of the schools with the most diversity. The financial diversity of Environmental Design ranks only within the 52nd percentile of all majors. Racial diversity is greater than financial diversity, in the 76th percentile. White collegians make up the largest proportion, 52%, of those studying environmental design. Additionally, 50% of scholars pursuing an environmental design major are women.

The median ranking of environmental design professors is 4 stars, a rating that is exactly the average across all majors; this is a fine. If you are looking for the most popular environmental design professor in the country, look no further than Crispin Pierce at University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. It might surprise you, but the top rated instructors of environmental design from student rankings are found at University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. As we including data other than just rankings we find that the college with the overall best professors for environmental design is University of California-Berkeley. You can find an explanation of our evolving ranking methodology of the best overall professors here, as well as many of the top professors in the U.S.

Finally, the most difficult college to get into for environmental design is University of California-Berkeley. While we think of this list more as a novelty, we have a comprehensive list of the hardest colleges to get into. Although, here at Authority we hope you believe that considering higher education through a lens primarily formed from superlatives could be said to be the root of many of higher education's fundamental issues. We at Authority encourage you to explore our other pages on different universities and peruse a couple of our insightful background pages on important things to think about as you continue your college search.