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.
College Factual reviewed 4 schools in the Southwest Region to determine which ones were the best for bachelor's degree seekers in the field of urban & regional planning. Combined, these schools handed out 289 bachelor's degrees in urban & regional planning to qualified students.
Choosing a Great Urban & Regional Planning School for Your Bachelor's Degree
The urban planning bachelor's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. Important measures of a quality urban planning program can vary widely even among the top schools. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.
A Great Overall School
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 account for this we include a college's overall Best Colleges ranking which itself looks at a collection of various factors like degree completion, educational resources, student body caliber and post-graduation earnings for the school as a whole.
Early-Career Earnings
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
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 urban & regional planning students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - The number of urban & regional planning students who choose to seek a bachelor's degree at the school.
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 easy is it for urban & regional planning to pay back their student loans after receiving their bachelor's degree.
Accreditation - Whether a school is regionally accredited and/or accredited by a recognized urban & regional planning related body.
Our full 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.
More Ways to Rank Urban & Regional Planning Schools
The urban planning school you choose to invest your time and money in matters. To help you make the decision that is right for you, we've developed a number of major-specific rankings, including this list of the Best Urban & Regional Planning Bachelor's Degree Schools in the Southwest Region.
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 Southwest Region
The following list ranks the best colleges and universities for pursuing a bachelor's degree in urban & regional planning.
Top Southwest Region Schools for a Bachelor's in Urban Planning
Every student pursuing a degree in a bachelor's degree in urban & regional planning has to check out Texas A&M University - College Station. Texas A&M College Station is a fairly large public university located in the midsize city of College Station.
Students who graduate with their bachelor's from the urban planning program state that they receive average early career earnings of $36,967.
It is difficult to beat Arizona State University - Tempe if you wish to pursue a bachelor's degree in urban & regional planning. Located in the midsize city of Tempe, ASU - Tempe is a public university with a very large student population.
Bachelor's recipients from the urban & regional planning major at Arizona State University - Tempe get $2,655 more than the typical college graduate with the same degree when they enter the workforce.
Every student pursuing a degree in a bachelor's degree in urban & regional planning has to look into University of Arizona. University of Arizona is a fairly large public university located in the large city of Tucson.
Bachelor's graduates who receive their degree from the urban planning program earn around $39,952 in their early career salary.
Any student who is interested in a bachelor's degree in urban & regional planning needs to check out Arizona State University - Skysong. ASU - Skysong is a fairly large public university located in the city of Scottsdale.
Urban & Regional Planning bachelor's degree recipients from Arizona State University - Skysong get an earnings boost of approximately $2,655 above the typical earnings of urban & regional planning graduates.
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).