If you pursue a bachelor's degree in civil engineering, you won't be alone. The field of study is the #35 most popular program in the country. This means there are lots of options to choose from when you decide to get your degree.
College Factual reviewed 35 schools in the Far Western US Region to determine which ones were the best for bachelor's degree seekers in the field of civil engineering. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 2,786 bachelor's degrees in civil engineering during the 2022-2023 academic year.
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Choosing a Great Civil Engineering School for Your Bachelor's Degree
The civil eng bachelor's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. Important measures of a quality civil eng 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
The overall quality of a bachelor's degree school is important to ensure a good education, not just how well they do in a particular major. To take this into account we include a college'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
One measure we use to determine the quality of a school is to look at the average salary of bachelor's graduates during the early years of their career. That is, everyone wants their bachelor's 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 civil engineering students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - How many other civil engineering students want to attend this school to pursue a bachelor's 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 much debt civil 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 civil engineering related body.
Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for civil engineering students working on their bachelor's degree.
The civil eng school you choose to invest your time and money in matters. To help you make the decision that is right for you, we've developed a number of major-specific rankings, including this list of the Best Civil Engineering Bachelor's Degree Schools in the Far Western US Region.
In addition to our rankings, you can take two colleges and compare them based on the criteria that matters most to you in our unique tool, College Combat.
Test it out when you get a chance! You may also want to bookmark the link and share it with others who are trying to make the college decision.
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It's hard to beat University of California - Davis if you want to pursue a bachelor's degree in civil engineering. UC Davis is a fairly large public university located in the suburb of Davis.
Those civil engineering students who get their bachelor's degree from University of California - Davis earn $2,186 more than the average civil eng graduate.
It's difficult to beat University of Southern California if you wish to pursue a bachelor's degree in civil engineering. Located in the large city of Los Angeles, USC is a private not-for-profit university with a fairly large student population.
Bachelor's recipients from the civil engineering program at University of Southern California get $12,283 above the average college graduate in this field when they enter the workforce.
Every student pursuing a degree in a bachelor's degree in civil engineering has to take a look at University of California - Berkeley. Located in the medium-sized city of Berkeley, UC Berkeley is a public university with a very large student population.
Bachelor's recipients from the civil engineering degree program at University of California - Berkeley make $5,163 above the average college graduate in this field when they enter the workforce.
Any student pursuing a degree in a bachelor's degree in civil engineering has to check out University of Washington - Seattle Campus. UW Seattle is a very large public university located in the city of Seattle.
Soon after graduation, civil eng bachelor's recipients usually earn an average of $73,357 in their early careers.
UCLA is a fairly large public university located in the large city of Los Angeles.
Those civil engineering students who get their bachelor's degree from University of California - Los Angeles earn $2,531 more than the standard civil eng graduate.
Cal Poly San Luis Obispo is a fairly large public university located in the suburb of San Luis Obispo.
Those civil engineering students who get their bachelor's degree from California Polytechnic State University - San Luis Obispo earn $7,694 more than the standard civil eng graduate.
Located in the suburb of Pomona, Cal Poly Pomona is a public university with a very large student population.
Those civil engineering students who get their bachelor's degree from California State Polytechnic University - Pomona make $2,779 more than the typical civil eng graduate.
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 civil eng bachelor's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. Important measures of a quality civil eng program can vary widely even among the top schools. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.
