2022 Best Value Bachelor’s Degree Colleges for Petroleum Engineering in the Rocky Mountains Region

When it comes to choosing a college, students have a lot of options - but not all of them are good. At College Factual, we’re committed to helping you make that decision by providing information such as that found in our “Best Value Petroleum Engineering Schools for a Bachelor’s in the Rocky Mountains Region” ranking.

In 2019-2020, 1,582 people earned their degree in petroleum engineering, making the major the 180th most popular in the United States. In 2017-2018, petroleum engineering graduates who were awarded their degree in 2015-2017, earned an average of $66,730 and had an average of $24,667 in loans still to pay off.

Across the Rocky Mountains region, there were 225 petroleum engineering graduates with average earnings and debt of $67,233 and $23,717 respectively. At the bachelor’s degree level specifically, there were 177 petroleum engineering graduates with average earnings and debt of $38,111 and $23,874 respectively.

This year’s “Best Value Petroleum Engineering Schools for a Bachelor’s in the Rocky Mountains Region” ranking analyzed 3 colleges that offered a degree in petroleum engineering. This ranking identifies schools with high-quality petroleum engineering programs that also have a lower cost than schools of similar quality.

Some of the factors we look at when determining these rankings are overall quality of the petroleum engineering 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.

More Ways to Rank Petroleum Engineering Schools

Since picking the right college can be one of the most important decisions of your life, we’ve developed the “Best Value Petroleum Engineering Schools for a Bachelor’s in the Rocky Mountains Region” 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. 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 Value Petroleum Engineering Schools for a Bachelor’s in the Rocky Mountains Region

The following schools top our list of the Best Best Value Petroleum Engineering Schools for a Bachelor’s in the Rocky Mountains Region.

Top 3 Best Value Bachelor’s Degree Colleges for Petroleum Engineering in the Rocky Mountains Region

#1

University of Wyoming

Laramie, Wyoming

#3 in overall quality

$12,159 Average Net Price

$75,047 Average Early-Career Earnings

You’ll join some of the best and brightest minds around if you attend University of Wyoming. The school came in at #1 for the Best Value Petroleum Engineering Schools for a Bachelor’s in the Rocky Mountains Region. Laramie, Wyoming is the setting for this fairly large institution of higher learning. The public school handed out bachelors’s petroleum engineering degrees to 65 students in 2019-2020.

UW did well in our major quality rankings, too. It placed #3 on our “Best Petroleum Engineering Bachelor’s Degree Schools in the Rocky Mountains Region” list. The yearly cost to attend University of Wyoming is $12,159 for Rocky Mountains Region Bachelor’s Degree Petroleum Engineering students.

The low student loan default rate of 4.5% 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%.

Read more about Petroleum Engineering at University of Wyoming

#2

Montana Technological University

Butte, Montana

#2 in overall quality

$15,023 Average Net Price

$88,096 Average Early-Career Earnings

Out of the 3 schools in the Best Value Petroleum Engineering Schools for a Bachelor’s in the Rocky Mountains Region that were part of this year’s ranking, Montana Technological University landed the #2 spot on the list. This small school is located in Butte, Montana, and it awarded 28 bachelors’s petroleum engineering degrees in 2019-2020.

Montana Tech did well in our major quality rankings, too. It placed #2 on our “Best Petroleum Engineering Bachelor’s Degree Schools in the Rocky Mountains Region” list. It costs about $15,023 for Rocky Mountains Region Bachelor’s Degree Petroleum Engineering students per year to attend Montana Tech.

Full Montana Tech Petroleum Engineering Report

#3

Colorado School of Mines

Golden, Colorado

#1 in overall quality

$26,750 Average Net Price

$88,785 Average Early-Career Earnings

You’ll be in good company if you decide to attend Colorado School of Mines. It ranked #3 on our 2022 Best Value Petroleum Engineering Schools for a Bachelor’s in the Rocky Mountains Region list. Colorado School of Mines is a medium-sized school located in Golden, Colorado that handed out 84 bachelors’s petroleum engineering degrees in 2019-2020.

Mines did well in our major quality rankings, too. It placed #1 on our “Best Petroleum Engineering Bachelor’s Degree Schools in the Rocky Mountains Region” list. The yearly cost to attend Colorado School of Mines is $26,750 for Rocky Mountains Region Bachelor’s Degree Petroleum Engineering students.

The school has an impressive student loan default rate. It’s only 1.7%, which is much lower than the national rate of 10.1%. Students who start out at the school are likely to stick around. The freshman retention rate is 92%.

Read more about Petroleum Engineering at Colorado School of Mines

• Best Value Bachelor’s Degree Colleges for Petroleum 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

• *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.

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