Forestry is about average in terms of popularity for bachelor's degrees programs. That is, it ranks #157 out of the 363 majors across the country that we analyze each year. As such, the degree program isn't offered at every college in the United States, but there are schools that do have a program in the field that are top-notch when it comes to quality.
In 2025, College Factual analyzed 2 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Forestry Bachelor's Degree Schools in the Southwest Region ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 93 bachelor's degrees in forestry during the 2022-2023 academic year.
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Average Earnings
To determine the overall quality of a graduate school, one factor we look at is the average early-career salary of those receiving their bachelor's degree from the school. This is because one of the main reasons people pursue their bachelor's degree is to enable themselves to find better-paying positions.
Other Factors We Consider
The metrics below are just some of the other metrics that we use to determine our rankings.
Major Focus - How many resources a school devotes to forestry students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - How many other forestry students want to attend this school to pursue a bachelor's degree.
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 forestry 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 forestry related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for forestry 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 Forestry Bachelor's Degree Schools in the Southwest Region ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.
In addition to College Factual's rankings, you may want to take a look at College Combat, our unique tool that lets you pit your favorite schools head-to-head and compare how they rate on factors that most interest you.
When you have some time, check it out - you may want to bookmark the link so you don't forget it.
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Northern Arizona University is one of the best schools in the United States for getting a bachelor's degree in forestry. NAU is a very large public university located in the city of Flagstaff.
Bachelor's students who receive their degree from the forestry program earn about $40,435 in their early career salary.
Stephen F Austin State University is one of the best schools in the United States for getting a bachelor's degree in forestry. Located in the town of Nacogdoches, SFASU is a public university with a large student population.
Soon after graduating, forestry bachelor's recipients typically earn about $39,953 at the beginning of their careers.
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).
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