If you plan on getting your associate degree in drafting & design engineering technology, you won't be alone since the degree program is ranked #48 in the country in terms of popularity. As a result, there are many college that offer the degree, making your choice of school a hard one.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 10 schools in the Great Lakes Region to determine which ones were the best for drafting & design engineering technology students pursuing a associate degree. Combined, these schools handed out 502 associate degrees in drafting & design engineering technology to qualified students.
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Choosing a Great Drafting & Design Engineering Technology School for Your Associate Degree
Your choice of drafting & design engineering technology for getting your associate degree school matters. Important measures of a quality design engineering tech program can vary widely even among the top schools. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.
A Great Overall School
A school that excels in educating for a particular major and degree level must be a great school overall as well. To account for this we include a school's overall Best Colleges ranking which itself looks at a collection of various factors like degree completion, educational resources, student body caliber and post-graduation earnings for the school as a whole.
Early-Career Earnings
Average early-career salary of those graduating with their associate degree is one indicator we use in our analysis to find the schools that offer the highest-quality education. That is, everyone wants their associate degree to be worth something, and salaries are one measure of determining that.
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 drafting & design engineering technology students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - How many other drafting & design engineering technology students want to attend this school to pursue a associate degree.
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 drafting & design engineering technology to pay back their student loans after receiving their associate degree.
Accreditation - Whether a school is regionally accredited and/or accredited by a recognized drafting & design engineering technology related body.
Our full 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.
More Ways to Rank Drafting & Design Engineering Technology Schools
Since picking the right college can be one of the most important decisions of your life, we've developed the Best Drafting & Design Engineering Technology Associate Degree Schools in the Great Lakes Region ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.
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Macomb Community College is one of the best schools in the country for getting an associate degree in drafting & design engineering technology. Macomb Community College is a large public college located in the midsize city of Warren.
Students who graduate with their associate from the design engineering tech program state that they receive average early career income of $44,701.
Every student pursuing a degree in an associate degree in drafting & design engineering technology needs to look into Ivy Tech Community College. Ivy Tech Community College is a fairly large public college located in the city of Indianapolis.
Associate graduates who receive their degree from the design engineering tech program earn around $41,467 in their early career salary.
Oakland Community College is one of the best schools in the country for getting an associate degree in drafting & design engineering technology. Located in the large suburb of Auburn Hills, Oakland Community College is a public college with a fairly large student population.
Students who graduate with their associate from the design engineering tech program report average early career wages of $45,844.
Located in the city of Grand Rapids, Grand Rapids Community College is a public college with a fairly large student population.
Associate recipients from the drafting & design engineering technology program at Grand Rapids Community College earn $3,474 above the typical college grad with the same degree when they enter the workforce.
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).
Your choice of drafting & design engineering technology for getting your associate degree school matters. Important measures of a quality design engineering tech program can vary widely even among the top schools. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.
