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 49 schools in the Middle Atlantic Region to determine which ones were the best for bachelor's degree seekers in the field of mechanical engineering. Combined, these schools handed out 5,059 bachelor's degrees in mechanical engineering to qualified students.
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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 complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools 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 Middle Atlantic 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.
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It's hard to beat Cornell University if you want to pursue a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering. Cornell is a very large private not-for-profit university located in the small city of Ithaca.
Bachelor's recipients from the mechanical engineering program at Cornell University earn $14,233 more than the average college graduate with the same degree shortly after graduation.
Carnegie Mellon University is a great option for individuals pursuing a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering. Located in the city of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon is a private not-for-profit university with a large student population.
Mechanical Engineering bachelor's degree recipients from Carnegie Mellon University get an earnings boost of approximately $5,316 over the typical earnings of mechanical engineering graduates.
University of Maryland - College Park is one of the finest schools in the country for getting a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering. UMCP is a fairly large public university located in the suburb of College Park.
Those mechanical engineering students who get their bachelor's degree from University of Maryland - College Park make $5,278 more than the standard me grad.
It's difficult to beat Stevens Institute of Technology if you wish to pursue a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering. Stevens is a moderately-sized private not-for-profit school located in the large suburb of Hoboken.
Those mechanical engineering students who get their bachelor's degree from Stevens Institute of Technology make $6,718 more than the average me student.
RPI is a medium-sized private not-for-profit school located in the small city of Troy.
Mechanical Engineering bachelor's degree recipients from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute earn a boost of around $2,626 over the average income of mechanical engineering majors.
Located in the small city of Bethlehem, Lehigh is a private not-for-profit university with a medium-sized student population.
Bachelor's recipients from the mechanical engineering degree program at Lehigh University make $4,272 above the average graduate with the same degree shortly after graduation.
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Additional Noteworthy Schools
These are some additional schools worth mentioning that are also great but just didn't quite make the cut to earn our top Best Mechanical Engineering Bachelor's Degree Schools in the Middle Atlantic Region award.
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).