2023 Most Popular Colleges for Aerospace & Aeronautical Engineering in Illinois

It’s not easy to decide which college to attend when there so many options available for students. One of our goals at College Factual is to give you as much information as we can - such as our “Most Well Attended Aerospace Engineering Major in Illinois” ranking - to help you make that decision.

In 2020-2021, 8,001 people earned their degree in aerospace and aeronautical engineering, making the major the 94th most popular in the United States. In 2019-2020, aerospace and aeronautical engineering graduates who were awarded their degree in 2017-2019, earned an average of $70,535 and had an average of $24,126 in loans still to pay off.

Across Illinois, there were 185 aerospace and aeronautical engineering graduates with average earnings and debt of $70,005 and $23,885 respectively.

For this year’s “Most Well Attended Aerospace Engineering Major in Illinois” ranking, we looked at 2 colleges that offer a degree in aerospace and aeronautical engineering. This ranking identifies schools that graduate the most students in aerospace and aeronautical engineering.

See our ranking methodology to learn more.

One Size Does Not Fit All

The aerospace engineering 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 “Most Well Attended Aerospace Engineering Major in Illinois”.

You can create your own custom comparison that focuses on the factors most important to you using our tool, College Combat. Go ahead and give it a try, or bookmark the link so you can check it out later.

Most Well Attended Aerospace Engineering Major in Illinois

The following schools top our list of the Best “Most Well Attended Aerospace Engineering Major in Illinois”.

Top 2 Most Popular Colleges for Aerospace & Aeronautical Engineering in Illinois

1

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Champaign, Illinois

#3 overall quality in Illinois

$53,270 Average Early-Career Earnings

$19,646 Average Student Debt

You’ll join some of the best and brightest minds around if you attend University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The school came in at #1 for the Most Well Attended Aerospace Engineering Major in Illinois. Champaign, Illinois is the setting for this large institution of higher learning. The public school handed out ’s aerospace engineering degrees to 154 students in 2020-2021.

The undergrad student loan default rate at the school is 2.3%, which is quite low when compared to the national default rate of 10.1%. The school has an excellent freshman retention rate of 94%, which means students like the school well enough to return for a second year.

Read full report on Aerospace & Aeronautical Engineering at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

2

Illinois Institute of Technology
Chicago, Illinois

#8 overall quality in Illinois

$68,021 Average Early-Career Earnings

$26,518 Average Student Debt

You’ll be in good company if you decide to attend Illinois Institute of Technology. It ranked #2 on our 2023 Most Well Attended Aerospace Engineering Major in Illinois list. Illinois Tech is a private not-for-profit institution located in Chicago, Illinois. The school has a medium-sized population, and it awarded 31 ’s degrees in 2020-2021.

With a undergrad student-to-faculty ratio of 10 to 1, it’s easy to see that the school is committed to helping their undergraduates succeed. The school has an excellent freshman retention rate of 87%, which means students like the school well enough to return for a second year. The undergrad student loan default rate at the school is 1.9%, which is quite low when compared to the national default rate of 10.1%.

Read more about Aerospace & Aeronautical Engineering at Illinois Tech

• Most Popular Colleges for Aerospace & Aeronautical Engineering in the Great Lakes Region
• Most Popular Colleges for Aerospace & Aeronautical Engineering

Notes and References

References

• 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 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).
• Information about the national average student loan default rate is from the U.S. Department of Education and refers to data about the 2016 borrower cohort tracking period for which the cohort default rate (CDR) was 10.1%.

Read more about our data sources and methodologies

Footnotes

• *Avg Salary and Avg 4-Year Grad Rate are for the top schools only.
• Some schools otherwise deserving of recognition may have been removed from this ranking in the event that new data identified post-publication warranted it, or at the request of the school.

Credits

• Credit for the banner image above goes to Ian3055.