Mechanical Engineering is of the hottest bachelor's degree programs in the United States, coming in as the #17 most popular major in the country. This means there are lots of options to choose from when you decide to get your degree.
College Factual reviewed 18 schools in the Rocky Mountains Region to determine which ones were the best for bachelor's degree seekers in the field of mechanical engineering. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 2,032 bachelor's degrees in mechanical engineering during the 2022-2023 academic year.
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Choosing a Great Mechanical Engineering School for Your Bachelor's Degree
Your choice of mechanical 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. 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 consider a college's overall Best Colleges ranking which itself looks at a collection of various 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 much a school focuses on mechanical engineering students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - The number of mechanical engineering students who choose to seek a bachelor's degree at the school.
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 easy is it for mechanical 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 mechanical engineering related body.
Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for mechanical engineering students working on their bachelor's degree.
Since picking the right college can be one of the most important decisions of your life, we've developed the Best Mechanical Engineering Bachelor's Degree Schools in the Rocky Mountains 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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Colorado School of Mines is one of the finest schools in the United States for getting a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering. Mines is a medium-sized public school located in the suburb of Golden.
Those mechanical engineering students who get their bachelor's degree from Colorado School of Mines make $6,749 more than the average me graduate.
Colorado State University - Fort Collins is one of the best schools in the United States for getting a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering. Located in the medium-sized city of Fort Collins, Colorado State is a public university with a very large student population.
Bachelor's students who receive their degree from the me program make around $60,720 in their early career salary.
University of Utah is a great choice for students interested in a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering. Located in the medium-sized city of Salt Lake City, U of U is a public university with a very large student population.
Mechanical Engineering bachelor's degree recipients from University of Utah receive an earnings boost of approximately $3,603 above the average income of mechanical engineering graduates.
Every student who is interested in a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering needs to look into University of Colorado Boulder. Located in the medium-sized city of Boulder, CU - Boulder is a public university with a very large student population.
Students who graduate with their bachelor's from the me program report average early career earnings of $66,089.
USU is a very large public university located in the city of Logan.
Mechanical Engineering bachelor's degree recipients from Utah State University get an earnings boost of approximately $2,010 above the typical earnings of mechanical 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).