2023 Most Focused Colleges for Materials Sciences in the Southwest Region

When it comes to choosing a college, students have a lot of options - but not all of them are good. One of our goals at College Factual is to give you as much information as we can - such as our “Schools Highly Focused on Materials Science Major in the Southwest Region” ranking - to help you make that decision.

Materials Sciences is the 265th most popular major in the country with 658 degrees awarded in 2020-2021. In 2019-2020, materials sciences graduates who were awarded their degree in 2017-2019, earned an average of $64,925 and had an average of $26,966 in loans still to pay off.

Across the Southwest region, there were 54 materials sciences graduates with average earnings and debt of $0 and $0 respectively.

This year’s “Schools Highly Focused on Materials Science Major in the Southwest Region” ranking analyzed 3 colleges that offered a degree in materials sciences. The colleges and universities that top this list are recognized because their materials sciences program is one of the largest majors offered at the school.

Check out our ranking methodology for more information.

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 “Schools Highly Focused on Materials Science Major in the Southwest Region” list to help you make the college 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.

Schools Highly Focused on Materials Science Major in the Southwest Region

The colleges and universities below are the best for southwest region materials science students.

Top 3 Most Focused Colleges for Materials Sciences in the Southwest Region

1

University of Arizona
Tucson, Arizona

#19 overall quality in Southwest

$46,654 Average Early-Career Earnings

$21,917 Average Student Debt

You’ll join some of the best and brightest minds around if you attend University of Arizona. The school came in at #1 for the Schools Highly Focused on Materials Science Major in the Southwest Region. University of Arizona is located in Tucson, Arizona and, has a large student population. In 2020-2021, this school awarded 27 ’s materials science degrees to qualified students.

Students who start out at the school are likely to stick around. The freshman retention rate is 85%.

Full University of Arizona Materials Sciences Report

2

University of New Mexico - Main Campus
Albuquerque, New Mexico

$45,271 Average Early-Career Earnings

$19,843 Average Student Debt

Out of the 3 schools in the Schools Highly Focused on Materials Science Major in the Southwest Region that were part of this year’s ranking, University of New Mexico - Main Campus landed the #2 spot on the list. University of New Mexico - Main Campus is located in Albuquerque, New Mexico and, has a large student population. In 2020-2021, this school awarded 8 ’s materials science degrees to qualified students.

Read full report on Materials Sciences at University of New Mexico - Main Campus

3

Northern Arizona University
Flagstaff, Arizona

$43,197 Average Early-Career Earnings

$22,197 Average Student Debt

You’ll join some of the best and brightest minds around if you attend Northern Arizona University. The school came in at #3 for the Schools Highly Focused on Materials Science Major in the Southwest Region. This large school is located in Flagstaff, Arizona, and it awarded 2 ’s materials science degrees in 2020-2021.

The school has an impressive undergrad student loan default rate. It’s only 4.6%, which is much lower than the national rate of 10.1%.

Read full report on Materials Sciences at NAU

• Most Focused Colleges for Materials Sciences

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

• *Avg Salary and Avg 4-Year Grad Rate 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 Per Henning.