Manufacturing Engineering is about average in terms of popularity for bachelor's degrees programs. That is, it ranks #203 out of the 363 majors across the country that we analyze each year. So, it might take a little more work to find colleges and universities that offer the degree program.
In 2025, College Factual analyzed 6 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Manufacturing Engineering Bachelor's Degree Schools in the Great Lakes Region ranking. Combined, these schools handed out 155 bachelor's degrees in manufacturing engineering to qualified students.
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Choosing a Great Manufacturing Engineering School for Your Bachelor's Degree
The manufacturing engineering bachelor's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. Important measures of a quality manufacturing engineering 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
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.
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
In addition to the above, you should consider some of the following factors:
Major Focus - How much a school focuses on manufacturing engineering students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - How many other manufacturing 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 manufacturing 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 manufacturing engineering related body.
Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for manufacturing engineering students working on their bachelor's degree.
More Ways to Rank Manufacturing Engineering Schools
Since picking the right college can be one of the most important decisions of your life, we've developed the Best Manufacturing Engineering Bachelor's Degree Schools in the Great Lakes Region ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.
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 is hard to beat Bradley University if you want to pursue a bachelor's degree in manufacturing engineering. Located in the midsize city of Peoria, Bradley is a private not-for-profit university with a moderately-sized student population.
Students who graduate with their bachelor's from the manufacturing engineering program state that they receive average early career income of $67,488.
University of Wisconsin - Stout is one of the best schools in the country for getting a bachelor's degree in manufacturing engineering. UW - Stout is a moderately-sized public university located in the distant town of Menomonie.
Students who graduate with their bachelor's from the manufacturing engineering program state that they receive average early career income of $72,830.
Located in the town of Allendale, GVSU is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Those manufacturing engineering students who get their bachelor's degree from Grand Valley State University make $5,307 more than the average manufacturing engineering student.
Located in the remote town of Big Rapids, Ferris is a public university with a medium-sized student population.
Bachelor's graduates who receive their degree from the manufacturing engineering program make an average of $68,715 in the first couple years of their career.
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.