a bachelor's degree in materials engineering is more popular than many other degrees. In fact, it ranks #145 out of 363 on popularity of all such degrees in the nation. So, you have a fair amount of options to choose from when looking for a school.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 8 schools in the Great Lakes Region to determine which ones were the best for materials engineering students pursuing a bachelor's degree. Combined, these schools handed out 368 bachelor's degrees in materials engineering to qualified students.
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Choosing a Great Materials Engineering School for Your Bachelor's Degree
Your choice of materials engineering for getting your bachelor'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. 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 materials engineering students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - The number of materials 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 easy is it for materials engineering to pay back their student loans after receiving their bachelor's degree.
Accreditation - Whether a school is regionally accredited and/or accredited by a recognized materials engineering related body.
Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for materials engineering students working on their bachelor's degree.
The materials engineering 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 Materials Engineering Bachelor's Degree Schools in the Great Lakes Region.
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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University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is one of the finest schools in the country for getting a bachelor's degree in materials engineering. Located in the city of Champaign, UIUC is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Bachelor's graduates who receive their degree from the materials engineering program earn around $75,080 in the first couple years of working.
Every student who is interested in a bachelor's degree in materials engineering needs to check out University of Michigan - Ann Arbor. U-M is a very large public university located in the city of Ann Arbor.
Students who graduate with their bachelor's from the materials engineering program report average early career wages of $75,041.
It's hard to beat Purdue University - Main Campus if you want to pursue a bachelor's degree in materials engineering. Purdue is a fairly large public university located in the small city of West Lafayette.
Materials Engineering bachelor's degree recipients from Purdue University - Main Campus get an earnings boost of around $5,014 over the average income of materials engineering majors.
Ohio State University - Main Campus is a wonderful option for individuals pursuing a bachelor's degree in materials engineering. Ohio State is a very large public university located in the city of Columbus.
Students who graduate with their bachelor's from the materials engineering program state that they receive average early career wages of $70,371.
Located in the large city of Madison, UW - Madison is a public university with a very large student population.
Those materials engineering students who get their bachelor's degree from University of Wisconsin - Madison receive $3,411 more than the average materials engineering graduate.
Located in the city of East Lansing, Michigan State is a public university with a very large student population.
Materials Engineering bachelor's degree recipients from Michigan State University get an earnings boost of around $5,025 over the typical income of materials 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).
Your choice of materials engineering for getting your bachelor'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. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
