2022 Best Value Optical Enginering Schools for a Bachelor’s For Those Making $0-$30k

With all of the options students have for higher education today, it can be tough to choose which direction to take. At College Factual, we’re committed to helping you make that decision by providing information such as that found in our “Best Value Optical Enginering Schools for a Bachelor’s For Those Making $0-$30k” ranking.

In 2019-2020, 132 people earned their degree in optical enginering, making the major the 940th most popular in the United States.

At the bachelor’s degree level specifically, there were 58 optical enginering graduates with average earnings and debt of $38,303 and $24,501 respectively.

For this year’s “Best Value Optical Enginering Schools for a Bachelor’s For Those Making $0-$30k” ranking, we looked at 3 colleges that offer a degree in optical enginering. Not only do the schools that top this list have excellent optical enginering programs, but they also cost less that schools of similar quality.

Some of the factors we look at when determining these rankings are overall quality of the optical enginering program at the school and the cost of the school after aid is awarded among other things. Check out our ranking methodology for more information.

One Size Does Not Fit All

Since picking the right college can be one of the most important decisions of your life, we’ve developed the “Best Value Optical Enginering Schools for a Bachelor’s For Those Making $0-$30k” 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. We encourage you to try it out and pit your favorite colleges and universities head to head! If you don’t have time right now, you can bookmark it for later.

Best Value Optical Enginering Schools for a Bachelor’s For Those Making $0-$30k

The following schools top our list of the Best Best Value Optical Enginering Schools for a Bachelor’s For Those Making $0-$30k.

Top 3 Best Value Bachelor’s Degree Colleges for Optical Enginering (Income $0-$30k)

#1

University of Central Florida

Orlando, Florida

#3 in overall quality

$6,211 Average Net Price

You’ll be in good company if you decide to attend University of Central Florida. It ranked #1 on our 2022 Best Value Optical Enginering Schools for a Bachelor’s For Those Making $0-$30k list. University of Central Florida is a large public school situated in Orlando, Florida. It awarded 19 bachelors’s optical enginering degrees in 2019-2020.

UCF also made our “Best Optical Enginering Bachelor’s Degree Schools” list, coming in at #3. It costs about $6,211 for bachelor’s degree optical enginering students whose families make $0-$30k per year to attend UCF.

The school has an impressive student loan default rate. It’s only 4.2%, which is much lower than the national rate of 10.1%. The school has an excellent freshman retention rate of 92%, which means students like the school well enough to return for a second year.

Read full report on Optical Enginering at UCF

#2

University of Rochester

Rochester, New York

#2 in overall quality

$15,324 Average Net Price

You’ll join some of the best and brightest minds around if you attend University of Rochester. The school came in at #2 for the Best Value Optical Enginering Schools for a Bachelor’s For Those Making $0-$30k. Located in Rochester, New York, this fairly large private not-for-profit school awarded 27 degrees to qualified bachelors’s optical enginering students in 2019-2020.

University of Rochester also made our “Best Optical Enginering Bachelor’s Degree Schools” list, coming in at #2. It costs about $15,324 for Bachelor’s Degree Optical Enginering students whose families make $0-$30k per year to attend University of Rochester.

The school has an excellent freshman retention rate of 92%, which means students like the school well enough to return for a second year. The student loan default rate at the school is 1.6%, which is quite low when compared to the national default rate of 10.1%. The student-to-faculty ratio of 10 to 1 is a sign that students will have more opportunities to engage with their professors one-on-one.

Read full report on Optical Enginering at University of Rochester

#3

Rose - Hulman Institute of Technology

Terre Haute, Indiana

#1 in overall quality

$34,275 Average Net Price

You’ll join some of the best and brightest minds around if you attend Rose - Hulman Institute of Technology. The school came in at #3 for the Best Value Optical Enginering Schools for a Bachelor’s For Those Making $0-$30k. This small school is located in Terre Haute, Indiana, and it awarded 12 bachelors’s optical enginering degrees in 2019-2020.

In addition to being on our bachelor’s degree optical enginering students whose families make $0-$30k list, Rose - Hulman Institute of Technology has also earned the #1 rank in our “Best Optical Enginering Bachelor’s Degree Schools” ranking. It costs about $34,275 for Bachelor’s Degree Optical Enginering students whose families make $0-$30k per year to attend Rose - Hulman Institute of Technology.

Students who start out at the school are likely to stick around. The freshman retention rate is 90%. The low student loan default rate of 0.2% is a good sign that students have an easier time paying off their loans than they might at other schools. For comparison, the national default rate is 10.1%. The student-to-faculty ratio of 10 to 1 is a sign that students will have more opportunities to engage with their professors one-on-one.

Read full report on Optical Enginering at Rose - Hulman Institute of Technology

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

• *Average salary, average net price, and average tuition and fees 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 NASA.

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