2023 Best Value Systems Engineering Schools in Virginia For Those Making $30-$48k

Students have lots of options to chooose from today when trying to decide which college to attend. One of our goals at College Factual is to give you as much information as we can - such as our “Best Value Systems Engineering Schools in Virginia For Those Making $30-$48k” ranking - to help you make that decision.

Systems Engineering is the 160th most popular major in the country with 3,904 degrees awarded in 2020-2021. In 2019-2020, systems engineering graduates who were awarded their degree in 2017-2019, earned an average of $89,736 and had an average of $21,799 in loans still to pay off.

Across Virginia, there were 227 systems engineering graduates with average earnings and debt of $89,110 and $21,627 respectively.

For this year’s “Best Value Systems Engineering Schools in Virginia For Those Making $30-$48k” ranking, we looked at 2 colleges that offer a degree in systems engineering. This ranking identifies schools with high-quality systems engineering programs that also have a lower cost than schools of similar quality.

When determining these rankings, we looked at things such as overall quality of the systems engineering program at the school and the cost to attend the school once aid has been awarded. For more information, check out our ranking methodology.

More Ways to Rank Systems Engineering Schools

Since picking the right college can be one of the most important decisions of your life, we’ve developed the “Best Value Systems Engineering Schools in Virginia For Those Making $30-$48k” ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.

We’ve created a tool called College Combat that lets you create your own customized comparisons based on the factors that matter the most to you. Go ahead and give it a try, or bookmark the link so you can check it out later.

Best Value Systems Engineering Schools in Virginia For Those Making $30-$48k

The following schools top our list of the Best Best Value Systems Engineering Schools in Virginia For Those Making $30-$48k.

Top 2 Best Value Colleges for Systems Engineering (Income $30-$48k) in Virginia

1

University of Virginia - Main Campus
Charlottesville, Virginia

#1 in overall quality

$10,063 Average Net Price

$58,809 Average Early-Career Earnings

You’ll join some of the best and brightest minds around if you attend University of Virginia - Main Campus. The school came in at #1 for the Best Value Systems Engineering Schools in Virginia For Those Making $30-$48k. Located in Charlottesville, Virginia, this large public school handed out 167 degrees to qualified ’s systems engineering students in 2020-2021.

In addition to being on our virginia systems engineering students whose families make $30-$48k list, University of Virginia has also earned the #1 rank in our “Best Systems Engineering Schools in Virginia” ranking. The yearly cost to attend University of Virginia is $10,063 for Virginia Systems Engineering students whose families make $30-$48k.

The school has an excellent freshman retention rate of 97%, which means students like the school well enough to return for a second year. The low undergrad student loan default rate of 0.7% 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 Systems Engineering at University of Virginia

2

George Mason University
Fairfax, Virginia

#2 in overall quality

$15,979 Average Net Price

$56,435 Average Early-Career Earnings

You’ll join some of the best and brightest minds around if you attend George Mason University. The school came in at #2 for the Best Value Systems Engineering Schools in Virginia For Those Making $30-$48k. Fairfax, Virginia is the setting for this large institution of higher learning. The public school handed out ’s systems engineering degrees to 47 students in 2020-2021.

As a testament to the quality of education offered at GMU, the school also landed the #2 spot in our “Best Systems Engineering Schools in Virginia” ranking. The estimated yearly cost for GMU is $15,979 for Virginia Systems Engineering students whose families make $30-$48k.

Students who start out at the school are likely to stick around. The freshman retention rate is 86%. The undergrad student loan default rate at the school is 2.5%, which is quite low when compared to the national default rate of 10.1%.

Read more about Systems Engineering at GMU

• Best Value Colleges for Systems Engineering (Income $30-$48k) in the Southeast Region
• Best Value Colleges for Systems Engineering (Income $30-$48k)

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 luis gomes.