Mechanical Engineering is of the hottest master's degree programs in the United States, coming in as the #29 most popular major in the country. So, there are lots of possibilities to explore when you're trying to determine where you want to get your degree.
College Factual reviewed 6 schools in Pennsylvania to determine which ones were the best for master's degree seekers in the field of mechanical engineering. Combined, these schools handed out 463 master's degrees in mechanical engineering to qualified students.
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Choosing a Great Mechanical Engineering School for Your Master's Degree
Your choice of mechanical engineering for getting your master'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
The overall quality of a master's degree school is important to ensure a good education, not just how well they do in a particular major. To account for this we consider a college's overall Best Colleges for a Master's Degree 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.
Average Early-Career Salaries
Average early-career salary of those graduating with their master's degree is one indicator we use in our analysis to find the schools that offer the highest-quality education. After all, your master'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
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 master'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 master's degree.
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 schools for mechanical engineering students working on their master'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 Master's Degree Schools in Pennsylvania.
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Any student pursuing a degree in a master's degree in mechanical engineering needs to look into Carnegie Mellon University. Carnegie Mellon is a fairly large private not-for-profit university located in the city of Pittsburgh.
Master's students who receive their degree from the me program earn an average of $93,617 in the first couple years of their career.
University of Pennsylvania is one of the best schools in the country for getting a master's degree in mechanical engineering. UPenn is a very large private not-for-profit university located in the large city of Philadelphia.
Master's students who receive their degree from the me program make about $94,109 in their early career salary.
Any student who is interested in a master's degree in mechanical engineering has to take a look at Villanova University. Villanova is a fairly large private not-for-profit university located in the suburb of Villanova.
Students who graduate with their master's from the me program state that they receive average early career earnings of $98,277.
Any student pursuing a degree in a master's degree in mechanical engineering needs to check out Lehigh University. Lehigh is a moderately-sized private not-for-profit university located in the small city of Bethlehem.
Master's students who receive their degree from the me program make an average of $98,551 for their early 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.
Some other college data, including much of the graduate earnings data, comes from the U.S. Department of Education’s (College Scorecard).