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.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 38 schools in the Southwest Region to determine which ones were the best for mechanical engineering students pursuing a bachelor's degree. Combined, these schools handed out 4,054 bachelor's degrees in mechanical engineering to qualified students.
DEBUG: No relevant offers, showing generic ESYOH widget
Choosing a Great Mechanical Engineering School for Your Bachelor's Degree
The me bachelor's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. Important measures of a quality me 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 many resources a school devotes to mechanical engineering students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - How many other mechanical 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 mechanical 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 mechanical engineering related body.
Our full 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.
The me 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 Mechanical Engineering Bachelor's Degree Schools in the Southwest 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.
DEBUG: Raw major_slug = "engineering//me-mechanical-engineering"
The University of Texas at Austin is a great choice for students interested in a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering. Located in the city of Austin, UT Austin is a public university with a very large student population.
Mechanical Engineering bachelor's degree recipients from The University of Texas at Austin receive an earnings boost of approximately $13,951 over the average earnings of mechanical engineering graduates.
It's hard to beat Texas A&M University - College Station if you wish to pursue a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering. Located in the city of College Station, Texas A&M College Station is a public university with a very large student population.
Bachelor's recipients from the mechanical engineering major at Texas A&M University - College Station make $9,509 above the standard graduate with the same degree when they enter the workforce.
Texas Tech University is one of the best schools in the country for getting a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering. Texas Tech is a very large public university located in the large city of Lubbock.
Mechanical Engineering bachelor's degree recipients from Texas Tech University earn a boost of around $4,992 above the average income of mechanical engineering graduates.
Arizona State University - Tempe is one of the finest schools in the country for getting a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering. ASU - Tempe is a fairly large public university located in the midsize city of Tempe.
Mechanical Engineering bachelor's degree recipients from Arizona State University - Tempe get an earnings boost of about $6,870 above the typical earnings of mechanical engineering majors.
Rice is a moderately-sized private not-for-profit university located in the large city of Houston.
Mechanical Engineering bachelor's degree recipients from Rice University earn a boost of around $14,623 over the typical income of mechanical engineering graduates.
Located in the large city of Tucson, University of Arizona is a public university with a very large student population.
Bachelor's recipients from the mechanical engineering degree program at University of Arizona earn $6,935 more than the standard college graduate in this field when they enter the workforce.
Located in the medium-sized suburb of Norman, University of Oklahoma is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Bachelor's recipients from the mechanical engineering major at University of Oklahoma Norman Campus make $3,148 above the average college graduate with the same degree when they enter the workforce.
Located in the large suburb of Dallas, SMU is a private not-for-profit university with a large student population.
Mechanical Engineering bachelor's degree recipients from Southern Methodist University earn a boost of approximately $11,004 above the average 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).
The me bachelor's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. Important measures of a quality me program can vary widely even among the top schools. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.
