2024 Best Electrical Engineering Doctor's Degree Schools

Electrical Engineering is of the hottest doctor's degree programs in the United States, coming in as the #13 most popular major in the country. So, there are lots of possibilities to explore when you're trying to determine where you want to get your degree.

In 2024, College Factual analyzed 125 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Electrical Engineering Doctor's Degree Schools ranking. Combined, these schools handed out 2,179 doctor's degrees in electrical engineering to qualified students.

Jump to one of the following sections: * Our Methodology

• Best Doctor’s Degree Schools List

Choosing a Great Electrical Engineering School for Your Doctor's Degree

The ee doctor's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. Important measures of a quality ee program can vary widely even among the top schools. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:

Overall Quality Is a Must

The overall quality of a doctor's degree school is important to ensure a good education, not just how well they do in a particular major. To make it into this list a school must rank well in our overall Best Colleges for a Doctor's Degree ranking. This ranking considered factors such as graduation rates, overall graduate earnings and other educational resources to identify great colleges and universities.

Average Early-Career Salaries

Average early-career salary of those graduating with their doctor's degree is one indicator we use in our analysis to find the schools that offer the highest-quality education. That is, everyone wants their doctor'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 electrical engineering students vs. other majors.
• Major Demand - The number of electrical engineering students who choose to seek a doctor's degree at the school.
• 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 electrical engineering students go into to obtain their doctor'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 electrical engineering related body.

Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for electrical engineering students working on their doctor's degree.

One Size Does Not Fit All

When choosing the right school for you, it's important to arm yourself with all the facts you can. To that end, we've created a number of major-specific rankings, including this Best Electrical Engineering Doctor's Degree Schools list to help you make the college decision.

 

Best Schools for Doctorate Students to Study Electrical Engineering in the United States

Below you'll see a list of the best colleges and universities for pursuing a doctor's degree in electrical engineering. Only those schools that rank in the top 15% of all the schools we analyze get awarded with a place on this list.

18 Top Schools for a Doctorate in EE

1

Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, MA

48 Annual Graduates

$141,603 Median Starting Salary

Any student who is interested in a doctor's degree in electrical engineering has to check out Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Located in the city of Cambridge, MIT is a private not-for-profit school with a fairly large student population.

Doctorate recipients from the electrical engineering program at Massachusetts Institute of Technology earn $2,073 above the average college grad with the same degree when they enter the workforce.

More information about a doctorate in electrical engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology

2

University of California - Berkeley
Berkeley, CA

53 Annual Graduates

University of California - Berkeley is a great decision for students pursuing a doctor's degree in electrical engineering. UC Berkeley is a fairly large public university located in the medium-sized city of Berkeley.More information about a doctorate in electrical engineering from University of California - Berkeley

3

Duke University
Durham, NC

34 Annual Graduates

It's difficult to beat Duke University if you want to pursue a doctor's degree in electrical engineering. Located in the city of Durham, Duke is a private not-for-profit university with a large student population.More information about a doctorate in electrical engineering from Duke University

4

University of Southern California
Los Angeles, CA

48 Annual Graduates

Every student who is interested in a doctor's degree in electrical engineering has to look into University of Southern California. USC is a very large private not-for-profit university located in the large city of Los Angeles.More information about a doctorate in electrical engineering from University of Southern California

5

Stanford University
Stanford, CA

73 Annual Graduates

$137,457 Median Starting Salary

Stanford is a fairly large private not-for-profit university located in the large suburb of Stanford.

Soon after graduation, ee doctorate recipients generally earn about $137,457 in their early careers.

More information about a doctorate in electrical engineering from Stanford University

6

University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA

15 Annual Graduates

Located in the large city of Philadelphia, UPenn is a private not-for-profit university with a fairly large student population.More information about a doctorate in electrical engineering from University of Pennsylvania

7

Washington University in St Louis
Saint Louis, MO

10 Annual Graduates

Located in the large suburb of Saint Louis, WUSTL is a private not-for-profit university with a fairly large student population.More information about a doctorate in electrical engineering from Washington University in St Louis

8

Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA

43 Annual Graduates

Located in the city of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon is a private not-for-profit university with a large student population.More information about a doctorate in electrical engineering from Carnegie Mellon University

9

Georgia Institute of Technology - Main Campus
Atlanta, GA

91 Annual Graduates

Located in the city of Atlanta, Georgia Tech is a public school with a very large student population.More information about a doctorate in electrical engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology - Main Campus

10

Princeton University
Princeton, NJ

21 Annual Graduates

Princeton is a moderately-sized private not-for-profit university located in the city of Princeton.More information about a doctorate in electrical engineering from Princeton University

11

Purdue University - Main Campus
West Lafayette, IN

80 Annual Graduates

Purdue is a fairly large public university located in the city of West Lafayette.More information about a doctorate in electrical engineering from Purdue University - Main Campus

12

Vanderbilt University
Nashville, TN

10 Annual Graduates

Vanderbilt is a fairly large private not-for-profit university located in the city of Nashville.More information about a doctorate in electrical engineering from Vanderbilt University

13

Northwestern University
Evanston, IL

6 Annual Graduates

Northwestern is a very large private not-for-profit university located in the small city of Evanston.More information about a doctorate in electrical engineering from Northwestern University

14

Cornell University
Ithaca, NY

22 Annual Graduates

Cornell is a fairly large private not-for-profit university located in the city of Ithaca.More information about a doctorate in electrical engineering from Cornell University

15

University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame, IN

15 Annual Graduates

Located in the suburb of Notre Dame, Notre Dame is a private not-for-profit university with a fairly large student population.More information about a doctorate in electrical engineering from University of Notre Dame

16

University of Wisconsin - Madison
Madison, WI

30 Annual Graduates

Located in the city of Madison, UW - Madison is a public university with a very large student population.More information about a doctorate in electrical engineering from University of Wisconsin - Madison

17

University of California - Los Angeles
Los Angeles, CA

35 Annual Graduates

Located in the large city of Los Angeles, UCLA is a public university with a very large student population.More information about a doctorate in electrical engineering from University of California - Los Angeles

18

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Champaign, IL

49 Annual Graduates

Located in the city of Champaign, UIUC is a public university with a fairly large student population.More information about a doctorate in electrical engineering from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Rest of the Top Best Electrical Engineering Doctor's Degree Schools

Additional Noteworthy Schools

These are some additional schools worth mentioning that are also great but just didn't quite make the cut to earn our top Best Electrical Engineering Doctor's Degree Schools award.

Rank	College	Location
19	Johns Hopkins University	Baltimore, MD
20	Columbia University in the City of New York	New York, NY
21	University of Virginia - Main Campus	Charlottesville, VA
22	University of Maryland - College Park	College Park, MD
23	University of Florida	Gainesville, FL
24	Texas A&M University - College Station	College Station, TX
25	Virginia Tech	Blacksburg, VA

Electrical Engineering by Region

View the Best Electrical Engineering Doctor's Degree Schools for a specific region near you.

Region
Southeast
New England
Rocky Mountains
Plains States
Middle Atlantic
Far Western US
Southwest
Other U.S. Territories
Great Lakes

View All Rankings >

Electrical Engineering Related Rankings by Major

One of 41 majors within the Engineering area of study, Electrical Engineering has other similar majors worth exploring.

EE Concentrations

Major	Annual Graduates
Electrical Engineering	2,129
Other Electrical Engineering	23
Optical Enginering	22
Telecommunications Engineering	5

Majors Similar to EE

Related Major	Annual Graduates
Mechanical Engineering	1,634
Biomedical Engineering	1,096
Chemical Engineering	1,087
Civil Engineering	1,086
Materials Engineering	712
General Engineering	477
Computer Engineering	386
Industrial Engineering	370
Aerospace & Aeronautical Engineering	361
Other Engineering	182

Notes and References

• 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 NASA. More about our data sources and methodologies.