Urban & Regional Planning is about average in terms of popularity for bachelor's degrees programs. That is, it ranks #178 out of the 363 majors across the country that we analyze each year. As such, the degree program isn't offered at every college in the United States, but there are schools that do have a program in the field that are top-notch when it comes to quality.
College Factual looked at 19 colleges and universities when compiling its 2025 Best Urban & Regional Planning Bachelor's Degree Schools ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 742 bachelor's degrees in urban & regional planning during the <nil> academic year.
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Choosing a Great Urban & Regional Planning School for Your Bachelor's Degree
The urban planning bachelor's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. Important measures of a quality urban planning program can vary widely even among the top schools. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
Quality Overall Is Important
The overall quality of a bachelor's degree school is important to ensure a good education, not just how well they do in a particular major. To take this into account we consider a school's overall Best Colleges ranking which itself looks at a collection of different factors like degree completion, educational resources, student body caliber and post-graduation earnings for the school as a whole.
Average Earnings
To determine the overall quality of a graduate school, one factor we look at is the average early-career salary of those receiving their bachelor's degree from the school. This is because one of the main reasons people pursue their bachelor's degree is to enable themselves to find better-paying positions.
Other Factors We Consider
The metrics below are just some of the other metrics that we use to determine our rankings.
Major Focus - How many resources a school devotes to urban & regional planning students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - The number of urban & regional planning students who choose to seek a bachelor's degree at the school.
Educational Resources - How many resources are allocated to students. These resources may include educational expenditures per student, number of students per instructor, and graduation rate among other things.
Student Debt - How easy is it for urban & regional planning to pay back their student loans after receiving their bachelor's degree.
Accreditation - Whether a school is regionally accredited and/or accredited by a recognized urban & regional planning related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for urban & regional planning students working on their bachelor's degree.
More Ways to Rank Urban & Regional Planning Schools
The urban planning school you choose to invest your time and money in matters. To help you make the decision that is right for you, we've developed a number of major-specific rankings, including this list of the Best Urban & Regional Planning Bachelor's Degree Schools.
In addition to College Factual's rankings, you may want to take a look at College Combat, our unique tool that lets you pit your favorite schools head-to-head and compare how they rate on factors that most interest you.
When you have some time, check it out - you may want to bookmark the link so you don't forget it.
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Cornell University is one of the best schools in the country for getting a bachelor's degree in urban & regional planning. Located in the small city of Ithaca, Cornell is a private not-for-profit university with a fairly large student population.
Students who graduate with their bachelor's from the urban planning program state that they receive average early career income of $37,131.
Texas A&M University - College Station is one of the best schools in the United States for getting a bachelor's degree in urban & regional planning. Texas A&M College Station is a fairly large public university located in the city of College Station.
Urban & Regional Planning bachelor's degree recipients from Texas A&M University - College Station earn a boost of around $8,557 over the average income of urban & regional planning graduates.
Any student who is interested in a bachelor's degree in urban & regional planning needs to take a look at University of Washington - Seattle Campus. UW Seattle is a very large public university located in the large city of Seattle.
Students who graduate with their bachelor's from the urban planning program state that they receive average early career wages of $39,635.
Cal Poly San Luis Obispo is a fairly large public university located in the suburb of San Luis Obispo.
Bachelor's recipients from the urban & regional planning major at California Polytechnic State University - San Luis Obispo make $5,809 above the typical graduate in this field shortly after graduation.
Located in the midsize city of Tempe, ASU - Tempe is a public university with a very large student population.
Bachelor's recipients from the urban & regional planning program at Arizona State University - Tempe earn $4,931 more than the standard graduate in this field when they enter the workforce.
Iowa State is a fairly large public university located in the city of Ames.
Those urban & regional planning students who get their bachelor's degree from Iowa State University earn $2,123 more than the average urban planning graduate.
Located in the large suburb of Pomona, Cal Poly Pomona is a public university with a very large student population.
Those urban & regional planning students who get their bachelor's degree from California State Polytechnic University - Pomona earn $3,937 more than the average urban planning grad.
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).