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.
College Factual reviewed 4 schools in Pennsylvania to determine which ones were the best for associate degree seekers in the field of drafting & design engineering technology. Combined, these schools handed out 147 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
The design engineering tech associate degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. This section explores some of the factors we include in our ranking and how much they vary depending on the school you select. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
Overall Quality Is a Must
The overall quality of a associate degree school is important to ensure a good education, not just how well they do in a particular major. To make it into this list a school must rank well in our overall Best Colleges ranking. This ranking considered factors such as graduation rates, overall graduate earnings and other educational resources to identify great colleges and universities.
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 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.
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 Pennsylvania list to help you make the college decision.
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It is hard to beat Pittsburgh Technical College if you want to pursue an associate degree in drafting & design engineering technology. Located in the large suburb of Oakdale, Pittsburgh Technical College is a private not-for-profit college with a fairly small student population.
After graduation, design engineering tech associate recipients usually earn around $41,991 in the first five years of their career.
It's difficult to beat Pennsylvania College of Technology if you want to pursue an associate degree in drafting & design engineering technology. Penn College is a small public college located in the city of Williamsport.
Those drafting & design engineering technology students who get their associate degree from Pennsylvania College of Technology earn $2,697 more than the standard design engineering tech grad.
Thaddeus Stevens College of Technology is one of the finest schools in the United States for getting an associate degree in drafting & design engineering technology. Located in the small city of Lancaster, Thaddeus Stevens College of Technology is a public college with a small student population.
Soon after graduation, design engineering tech associate recipients typically make around $36,002 in their early careers.
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).