When it comes to popularity, a bachelor's degree in urban & regional planning sits in the middle of the road, ranking #178 out of 363 majors in the country. So, it might take a little more work to find colleges and universities that offer the degree program.
For its 2024 ranking, College Factual looked at 2 schools in the Great Lakes Region to determine which ones were the best for urban & regional planning students pursuing a bachelor's degree. Combined, these schools handed out 103 bachelor's degrees in urban & regional planning to qualified students.
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 urban & regional planning students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - How many other urban & regional planning students want to attend this school to pursue a bachelor's degree.
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 much debt urban & regional planning 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 urban & regional planning related body.
Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for urban & regional planning students working on their bachelor's degree.
Since picking the right college can be one of the most important decisions of your life, we've developed the Best Urban & Regional Planning Bachelor's Degree Schools in the Great Lakes Region ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.
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 Urban & Regional Planning in the Great Lakes Region
The following list ranks the best colleges and universities for pursuing a bachelor's degree in urban & regional planning.
Top Great Lakes Region Schools for a Bachelor's in Urban Planning
Ohio State University - Main Campus is a wonderful decision for individuals pursuing a bachelor's degree in urban & regional planning. Ohio State is a fairly large public university located in the large city of Columbus.
Bachelor's graduates who receive their degree from the urban planning program earn around $38,233 in their early career salary.
It's hard to beat University of Cincinnati - Main Campus if you want to pursue a bachelor's degree in urban & regional planning. UC is a very large public university located in the large city of Cincinnati.
Bachelor's recipients from the urban & regional planning program at University of Cincinnati - Main Campus make $2,588 more than the typical college grad with the same degree when they enter the workforce.
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).