If you plan on getting your bachelor's degree in chemical engineering, you won't be alone since the degree program is ranked #51 in the country in terms of popularity. This means you won't have too much trouble finding schools that offer the degree.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 27 schools in the Great Lakes Region to determine which ones were the best for chemical engineering students pursuing a bachelor's degree. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 1,670 bachelor's degrees in chemical engineering during the 2022-2023 academic year.
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Choosing a Great Chemical Engineering School for Your Bachelor's Degree
The chem eng bachelor's 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. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
Quality Overall Is Important
A school that excels in educating for a particular major and degree level must be a great school overall as well. 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 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 bachelor's degree from the school. This is because one of the main reasons people pursue their bachelor's degree is to enable themselves to find better-paying positions.
Other Factors We Consider
In addition to the above, you should consider some of the following factors:
Major Focus - How many resources a school devotes to chemical engineering students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - How many other chemical engineering students want to attend this school to pursue a bachelor'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 chemical engineering students go into to obtain their bachelor'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 chemical engineering related body.
Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for chemical engineering students working on their bachelor's 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 Chemical Engineering Bachelor's Degree Schools in the Great Lakes Region list to help you make the college decision.
In addition to College Factual's rankings, you may want to take a look at College Combat, our unique tool that lets you pit your favorite schools head-to-head and compare how they rate on factors that most interest you.
When you have some time, check it out - you may want to bookmark the link so you don't forget it.
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Every student who is interested in a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering has to check out University of Michigan - Ann Arbor. U-M is a fairly large public university located in the midsize city of Ann Arbor.
Those chemical engineering students who get their bachelor's degree from University of Michigan - Ann Arbor receive $5,443 more than the average chem eng student.
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is a good option for individuals interested in a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering. Located in the small city of Champaign, UIUC is a public university with a very large student population.
Those chemical engineering students who get their bachelor's degree from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign receive $3,332 more than the typical chem eng student.
University of Notre Dame is a good decision for individuals pursuing a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering. Located in the suburb of Notre Dame, Notre Dame is a private not-for-profit university with a fairly large student population.
Bachelor's recipients from the chemical engineering program at University of Notre Dame earn $9,269 above the typical college grad in this field shortly after graduation.
Every student who is interested in a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering has to check out University of Wisconsin - Madison. Located in the large city of Madison, UW - Madison is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Bachelor's recipients from the chemical engineering degree program at University of Wisconsin - Madison get $11,837 more than the average college graduate with the same degree when they enter the workforce.
Purdue is a fairly large public university located in the city of West Lafayette.
Bachelor's recipients from the chemical engineering program at Purdue University - Main Campus make $6,997 above the typical college graduate in this field shortly after graduation.
Northwestern is a very large private not-for-profit university located in the small city of Evanston.
Chemical Engineering bachelor's degree recipients from Northwestern University receive an earnings boost of about $6,601 above the typical earnings of chemical engineering graduates.
Ohio State is a fairly large public university located in the large city of Columbus.
Those chemical engineering students who get their bachelor's degree from Ohio State University - Main Campus earn $3,347 more than the standard chem eng graduate.
Located in the town of Houghton, Michigan Tech is a public university with a medium-sized student population.
Bachelor's recipients from the chemical engineering program at Michigan Technological University earn $6,085 more than the standard graduate with the same degree when they enter the workforce.
UC is a very large public university located in the large city of Cincinnati.
Chemical Engineering bachelor's degree recipients from University of Cincinnati - Main Campus receive an earnings boost of approximately $8,264 over the average earnings of chemical engineering graduates.
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).
The chem eng bachelor's 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. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
