2024 Best Colleges for Forestry

SUMMARY

A degree in Forestry is a valuable choice and generally a requisite first step for students intending to pursue a career as a forester, a forest park ranger, or an arborist. Interestingly, forestry is a very rare degree ranking as the 200th most popular degree. Last year alone, there were 1,156 forestry graduates. In-state tuition for forestry at private universities is, on average, 3 times more pricey than their public peers.

With just 55 schools offering forestry there might be a more finite list of the institutions that will have an option for you. If you're hoping to surround yourself with other forestry students, consider universities in California which have the most undergraduates admitted to forestry annually. More generally, the top region to pursue forestry is in the Southeast region with University of Florida, North Carolina State University at Raleigh, and Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University best representing the region. Interestingly, our pick of the top conference to major in forestry is the Southeastern Conference with Auburn University, University of Florida, and Mississippi State University representing the conference. On that topic, our choice for the best university for forestry is University of California-Berkeley, and here you can find our comprehensive list for the best colleges.

The 'best' school is not necessarily the 'best' school for you. There can be tons of angels to consider when selecting ​university. Features like campus amenities, transportation services, and food would definitely alter one's decision of which school to attend. Here at Authority, we examined the pros and cons for you. If, for example, you want to know which forestry school has the best campus, the answer is Michigan State University. If you are very interested in which university is home to the finest campus, we have an entire list dedicated to that. We have carefully pored through government databases, professor reviews, student reviews, and more so we can compare each major in an unbiased and informative way. Here you can find our comprehensive list for the schools with the best student life&nbspand from that list, our pick for the university with the best student life for forestry is University of Florida. Are you curious why? Continue scrolling to find out more about Authority's top choices. Many of our picks just might shock you.

If cost is a primary deciding factor in your decisions, you might be cautious about University of Vermont. University of Vermont&nbspappears to be the most expensive university for forestry, at least for out of state students. We have an entire list of the most expensive&nbspuniversities that might put the cost of University of Vermont&nbspinto perspective. For more context, you may care to know that forestry is the 250th most expensive degree in the US, with an average cost of $27,000. On a broader scale, the most expensive state for forestry in the country is Vermont with expenses at the main college, University of Vermont, of $41,280. To zoom out even further, the most expensive region for forestry is the New England region which is best demonstrated with University of Maine with a cost of $29,310, and University of Vermont with a cost of $41,280.

Our cheapest region for forestry is the Southeast region which is represented by University of Arkansas at Monticello with a cost of $10,629, Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College with a cost of $9,469, and Southern University and A & M College with a cost of $4,972. In better news, the most affordable school for forestry is SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry. Authority.org's comprehensive list of the most affordable universities can be found here.

In-state learners can anticipate paying about $11,200 for a degree in forestry. The cost grows significantly to an average of $28,500 for an out-of-state public-school student. On that note, our choice for the university constituting the best value for forestry: University of California-Davis. Through this link you can see our comprehensive list of the colleges we believe to be the best value&nbspoverall. With that said, this section is predicated on out-of-state tuition costs. A discussion of value changes when in-state tuition costs are considered, but we do not know where you live (and are not trying to collect that kind of data).

Earnings for forestry students range widely, but two years after completing the major graduates will typically earn around $46,000. While there can be a lot of variation in earnings potential; top earners can enjoy pay up to $96,200. Right out of college, the lowest earning jobs within the forestry field earn $22,000, which is an alright wage. The highest earning grads for forestry graduated from Michigan Technological University&nbspand if you want to find the schools with all of the highest earning graduates, Authority has that too.

The prevailing diversity of forestry ranks quite poor, arriving in only the 7th percentile of majors nationally. The school with the highest composite diversity for forestry is University of California-Berkeley&nbspand here you can find our general list of the schools with the most diversity. The financial diversity of the Forestry major ranks only in the 81st percentile compared to all other majors. Racial diversity is even further below average in the 6th percentile. White students make up the largest proportion, 82%, of those majoring in forestry. Additionally, 70% of scholars seeking a forestry major are men.

The median ranking of forestry professors is 4.2 stars, a ranking that is 5% higher than the average across every major; which is a good ranking. If you are searching for the most popular forestry professor nationally, consider looking up Bruce Lord from Pennsylvania State University-Main Campus. This might be a shock, but the highest rated professors of forestry by student are at Oregon State University. As we consider data beyond basic rankings we find that the school with the best professors for forestry is University of California-Davis. You can find more detail on our evolving ranking methodology of the best overall professors here, along with many of the finest examples of professors nationwide.

Finally, the hardest college to get into for forestry is University of California-Berkeley. While we think of this list more as a novelty, we have a comprehensive page of the hardest colleges to get into. That being said, we hope you believe that looking at the higher education world with a lens primarily informed by superlatives can create problems. We hope you look at some of our more nuanced pages on individual universities and explore a few of our background pages on important things to consider as your college search develops.