Chemical Engineering is of the hottest degree programs in the United States, coming in as the #64 most popular major in the country. This means there are lots of options to choose from when you decide to get your degree.
For its 2024 ranking, College Factual looked at 151 schools in the United States to determine which ones were the best for chemical engineering students pursuing a degree. Combined, these schools handed out 12,690 degrees in chemical engineering to qualified students.
Your choice of chemical engineering school matters, so we have put together these rankings to help you make your decision. We derive our Best Overall Chemical Engineering School rankings by rolling up our degree-level rankings after weighting them by the number of degrees awarded at each school.
You may want to choose one of the degree levels below to find the schools of most interest to you.
The chem eng 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 Chemical Engineering Schools.
If you'd like to restrict your choices to just one part of the country, you can filter this list by location.
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 Chemical Engineering in the United States
Although we recommend filtering by degree level first, you can view the list below to see which schools give the educational experience for the chem eng degree levels they offer. Only those schools that rank in the top 15% of all the schools we analyze get awarded with a place on this list.
It's difficult to beat Massachusetts Institute of Technology if you wish to pursue a degree in chemical engineering. Located in the medium-sized city of Cambridge, MIT is a private not-for-profit school with a fairly large student population. A Best Colleges rank of #1 out of 2,217 colleges nationwide means MIT is a great school overall.
There were about 71 chemical engineering students who graduated with this degree at MIT in the most recent data year.
It's hard to beat University of Michigan - Ann Arbor if you wish to pursue a degree in chemical engineering. U-M is a very large public university located in the medium-sized city of Ann Arbor. This university ranks 1st out of 57 schools for overall quality in the state of Michigan.
There were about 177 chemical engineering students who graduated with this degree at U-M in the most recent year we have data available.
Stanford University is one of the best schools in the country for getting a degree in chemical engineering. Stanford is a large private not-for-profit university located in the suburb of Stanford. A Best Colleges rank of #3 out of 2,217 schools nationwide means Stanford is a great university overall.
There were roughly 65 chemical engineering students who graduated with this degree at Stanford in the most recent data year.
Carnegie Mellon University is one of the finest schools in the United States for getting a degree in chemical engineering. Located in the city of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon is a private not-for-profit university with a large student population. A Best Colleges rank of #9 out of 2,217 schools nationwide means Carnegie Mellon is a great university overall.
There were approximately 126 chemical engineering students who graduated with this degree at Carnegie Mellon in the most recent data year.
Northwestern is a very large private not-for-profit university located in the city of Evanston. A Best Colleges rank of #5 out of 2,217 schools nationwide means Northwestern is a great university overall.
There were about 48 chemical engineering students who graduated with this degree at Northwestern in the most recent year we have data available.
Rice is a moderately-sized private not-for-profit university located in the large city of Houston. A Best Colleges rank of #16 out of 2,217 schools nationwide means Rice is a great university overall.
There were roughly 46 chemical engineering students who graduated with this degree at Rice in the most recent data year.
Located in the large city of Atlanta, Georgia Tech is a public school with a fairly large student population. This school ranks 1st out of 68 schools for overall quality in the state of Georgia.
There were approximately 241 chemical engineering students who graduated with this degree at Georgia Tech in the most recent data year.
Located in the suburb of Notre Dame, Notre Dame is a private not-for-profit university with a large student population. A Best Colleges rank of #20 out of 2,217 colleges nationwide means Notre Dame is a great university overall.
There were roughly 88 chemical engineering students who graduated with this degree at Notre Dame in the most recent data year.
Cornell is a fairly large private not-for-profit university located in the city of Ithaca. This university ranks 3rd out of 142 colleges for overall quality in the state of New York.
There were approximately 131 chemical engineering students who graduated with this degree at Cornell in the most recent year we have data available.
Located in the medium-sized city of College Station, Texas A&M College Station is a public university with a very large student population. This university ranks 3rd out of 115 colleges for overall quality in the state of Texas.
There were roughly 276 chemical engineering students who graduated with this degree at Texas A&M College Station in the most recent data year.
Princeton is a moderately-sized private not-for-profit university located in the small city of Princeton. A Best Colleges rank of #10 out of 2,217 schools nationwide means Princeton is a great university overall.
There were about 52 chemical engineering students who graduated with this degree at Princeton in the most recent year we have data available.
Purdue is a very large public university located in the city of West Lafayette. This university ranks 2nd out of 42 schools for overall quality in the state of Indiana.
There were approximately 237 chemical engineering students who graduated with this degree at Purdue in the most recent data year.
Located in the small city of Champaign, UIUC is a public university with a very large student population. This university ranks 3rd out of 85 schools for overall quality in the state of Illinois.
There were about 181 chemical engineering students who graduated with this degree at UIUC in the most recent data year.
Located in the city of Austin, UT Austin is a public university with a fairly large student population. This university ranks 2nd out of 115 colleges for overall quality in the state of Texas.
There were about 203 chemical engineering students who graduated with this degree at UT Austin in the most recent data year.
Located in the city of Madison, UW - Madison is a public university with a very large student population. This university ranks 1st out of 46 colleges for overall quality in the state of Wisconsin.
There were roughly 121 chemical engineering students who graduated with this degree at UW - Madison in the most recent data year.
Located in the large suburb of Saint Louis, WUSTL is a private not-for-profit university with a fairly large student population. A Best Colleges rank of #17 out of 2,217 schools nationwide means WUSTL is a great university overall.
There were approximately 85 chemical engineering students who graduated with this degree at WUSTL in the most recent year we have data available.
Located in the large city of New York, Columbia is a private not-for-profit university with a fairly large student population. A Best Colleges rank of #14 out of 2,217 schools nationwide means Columbia is a great university overall.
There were roughly 114 chemical engineering students who graduated with this degree at Columbia in the most recent data year.
Vanderbilt is a fairly large private not-for-profit university located in the city of Nashville. A Best Colleges rank of #19 out of 2,217 colleges nationwide means Vanderbilt is a great university overall.
There were roughly 37 chemical engineering students who graduated with this degree at Vanderbilt in the most recent year we have data available.
USC is a very large private not-for-profit university located in the city of Los Angeles. A Best Colleges rank of #11 out of 2,217 colleges nationwide means USC is a great university overall.
There were about 68 chemical engineering students who graduated with this degree at USC in the most recent data year.
UC Berkeley is a fairly large public university located in the midsize city of Berkeley. A Best Colleges rank of #18 out of 2,217 colleges nationwide means UC Berkeley is a great university overall.
There were roughly 175 chemical engineering students who graduated with this degree at UC Berkeley in the most recent year we have data available.
Located in the suburb of Golden, Mines is a public school with a medium-sized student population. This school ranks 1st out of 33 colleges for overall quality in the state of Colorado.
There were about 154 chemical engineering students who graduated with this degree at Mines in the most recent year we have data available.
Located in the city of Seattle, UW Seattle is a public university with a very large student population. This university ranks 1st out of 51 colleges for overall quality in the state of Washington.
There were roughly 103 chemical engineering students who graduated with this degree at UW Seattle in the most recent year we have data available.
These are some additional schools worth mentioning that are also great but just didn't quite make the cut to earn our top Best Chemical Engineering Schools award.
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).
Credit for the banner image above goes to Mikulova.
college factual
Your choice of chemical engineering school matters, so we have put together these rankings to help you make your decision. We derive our Best Overall Chemical Engineering School rankings by rolling up our degree-level rankings after weighting them by the number of degrees awarded at each school.
