2025 Best Biomedical Engineering Doctor's Degree Schools in Illinois

Ranked #27 in popularity, biomedical engineering is one of the most sought-after doctor's degree programs in the nation. This makes choosing the right school a hard decision.

In 2025, College Factual analyzed 3 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Biomedical Engineering Doctor's Degree Schools in Illinois ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 50 doctor's degrees in biomedical engineering during the 2022-2023 academic year.

Jump to one of the following sections: * Our Methodology

• Best Doctor’s Degree Schools List

Choosing a Great Biomedical Engineering School for Your Doctor's Degree

Your choice of biomedical engineering for getting your doctor's degree school matters. This section explores some of the factors we include in our ranking and how much they vary depending on the school you select. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:

Quality Overall Is Important

The overall quality of a doctor's degree school is important to ensure a quality 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 for a Doctor's Degree ranking. This ranking considered factors such as graduation rates, overall graduate earnings and other educational resources to identify great colleges and universities.

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 doctor's degree from the school. After all, your doctor's 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 biomedical engineering students vs. other majors.
• Major Demand - How many other biomedical engineering students want to attend this school to pursue a doctor's degree.
• 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 biomedical engineering students go into to obtain their doctor's 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 biomedical engineering related body.

Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for biomedical engineering students working on their doctor's degree.

One Size Does Not Fit All

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 Biomedical Engineering Doctor's Degree Schools in Illinois list to help you make the college decision.

Best Schools for Doctorate Students to Study Biomedical Engineering in Illinois

Explore the top ranked colleges and universities for biomedical engineering students seeking a a doctor's degree.

Top Illinois Schools for a Doctorate in Bio Engineering

1

Northwestern University
Evanston, IL

17 Annual Graduates

Northwestern University is one of the finest schools in the country for getting a doctor's degree in biomedical engineering. Northwestern is a fairly large private not-for-profit university located in the small city of Evanston.More information about a doctorate in biomedical engineering from Northwestern University

2

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Champaign, IL

15 Annual Graduates

It's difficult to beat University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign if you want to pursue a doctor's degree in biomedical engineering. Located in the city of Champaign, UIUC is a public university with a very large student population.More information about a doctorate in biomedical engineering from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

3

University of Illinois at Chicago
Chicago, IL

15 Annual Graduates

University of Illinois at Chicago is one of the best schools in the country for getting a doctor's degree in biomedical engineering. UIC is a fairly large public university located in the city of Chicago.More information about a doctorate in biomedical engineering from University of Illinois at Chicago

Best Biomedical Engineering Colleges in the Great Lakes Region

Explore all the Best Biomedical Engineering Colleges in the Great Lakes Area or other specific states within that region.

State	Colleges	Degrees Awarded
Michigan	149	26
Ohio	144	33
Indiana	132	24
Wisconsin	108	17

View All Rankings >

Biomedical Engineering Related Rankings by Major

Biomedical Engineering is one of 41 different types of Engineering programs to choose from.

Bio Engineering Focus Areas

Major	Annual Graduates
Bioengineering & Biomedical Engineering	50

Majors Similar to Bio Engineering

Related Major	Annual Graduates
Electrical Engineering	96
Mechanical Engineering	89
Chemical Engineering	73
Materials Engineering	68
Civil Engineering	46
Industrial Engineering	20
Aerospace & Aeronautical Engineering	12
Nuclear Engineering	9
Engineering Mechanics	6
Agricultural Engineering	4

Notes and References

• 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).
• Credit for the banner image above goes to UC Davis College of Engineering. More about our data sources and methodologies.