Drafting & Design Engineering Technology is above average in terms of popularity with it being the #48 most popular associate degree program in the country. So, you have a fair amount of options to choose from when looking for a school.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 2 schools in the Far Western US Region to determine which ones were the best for drafting & design engineering technology students pursuing a associate degree. Combined, these schools handed out 376 associate degrees in drafting & design engineering technology to qualified students.
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Average Early-Career Salaries
To determine the overall quality of a graduate school, one factor we look at is the average early-career salary of those receiving their associate degree from the school. After all, your associate degree won't mean much if it doesn't help you find a job that will help you earn a living.
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 drafting & design engineering technology students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - The number of drafting & design engineering technology students who choose to seek a associate 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 drafting & design engineering technology students go into to obtain their associate 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 drafting & design engineering technology related body.
Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for drafting & design engineering technology students working on their associate degree.
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 Drafting & Design Engineering Technology Associate Degree Schools in the Far Western US Region list to help you make the college decision.
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Every student pursuing a degree in an associate degree in drafting & design engineering technology has to check out Portland Community College. Located in the large city of Portland, Portland Community College is a public college with a fairly large student population.
Associate students who receive their degree from the design engineering tech program earn an average of $54,198 in the first couple years of their career.
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).
