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 5 schools in the Middle Atlantic Region to determine which ones were the best for drafting & design engineering technology students pursuing a associate degree. Combined, these schools handed out 379 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 take this into account we include a school's overall Best Colleges ranking which itself looks at a combination of different 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 the program you select can have a significant impact on your future, we've developed a number of rankings, including this Best Drafting & Design Engineering Technology Associate Degree Schools in the Middle Atlantic Region list, to help you choose the best school for you.
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Pittsburgh Technical College is one of the finest schools in the country for getting an associate degree in drafting & design engineering technology. Pittsburgh Technical College is a fairly small private not-for-profit college located in the suburb of Oakdale.
Associate graduates who receive their degree from the design engineering tech program earn around $41,991 for their early career.
Pennsylvania College of Technology is one of the best schools in the United States for getting an associate degree in drafting & design engineering technology. Located in the small city of Williamsport, Penn College is a public college with a small student population.
Drafting & Design Engineering Technology associate degree recipients from Pennsylvania College of Technology get an earnings boost of about $2,697 above the average income of drafting & design engineering technology graduates.
Thaddeus Stevens College of Technology is a great choice for individuals interested in an associate degree in drafting & design engineering technology. Thaddeus Stevens College of Technology is a small public college located in the city of Lancaster.
Associate graduates who receive their degree from the design engineering tech program make around $36,002 in their early career salary.
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.
