If you plan on getting your bachelor's degree in industrial engineering, you won't be alone since the degree program is ranked #71 in the country in terms of popularity. So, you have a fair amount of options to choose from when looking for a school.
In 2025, College Factual analyzed 6 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Industrial Engineering Bachelor's Degree Schools in Illinois ranking. Combined, these schools handed out 211 bachelor's degrees in industrial engineering to qualified students.
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Choosing a Great Industrial Engineering School for Your Bachelor's Degree
The ie 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. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
Overall Quality Is a Must
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 Early-Career Salaries
Average early-career salary of those graduating with their bachelor's degree is one indicator we use in our analysis to find the schools that offer the highest-quality education. After all, your bachelor'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 industrial engineering students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - The number of industrial engineering students who choose to seek a bachelor's 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 industrial 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 industrial engineering related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for industrial engineering students working on their bachelor's degree.
The ie 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 Industrial Engineering Bachelor's Degree Schools in Illinois.
To further help you make the college decision, we've developed a unique tool called College Combat that allows you to compare schools based on the factors that matter the most to you.
Go ahead and give it a try, or bookmark the link so you can check it out later.
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It is hard to beat Northwestern University if you want to pursue a bachelor's degree in industrial engineering. Northwestern is a fairly large private not-for-profit university located in the small city of Evanston.
Bachelor's recipients from the industrial engineering program at Northwestern University make $16,682 more than the standard college graduate in this field shortly after graduation.
It's hard to beat University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign if you wish to pursue a bachelor's degree in industrial engineering. Located in the small city of Champaign, UIUC is a public university with a very large student population.
Industrial Engineering bachelor's degree recipients from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign earn a boost of approximately $5,184 above the average earnings of industrial engineering graduates.
Any student who is interested in a bachelor's degree in industrial engineering needs to take a look at University of Illinois at Chicago. UIC is a fairly large public university located in the large city of Chicago.
Soon after graduating, ie bachelor's recipients generally make an average of $57,281 in their early careers.
It is difficult to beat Bradley University if you want to pursue a bachelor's degree in industrial engineering. Located in the medium-sized city of Peoria, Bradley is a private not-for-profit university with a medium-sized student population.
Students who graduate with their bachelor's from the ie program report average early career wages of $68,166.
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.
The ie 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. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
