When it comes to popularity, a bachelor's degree in forestry sits in the middle of the road, ranking #157 out of 363 majors in the country. So, it might take a little more work to find colleges and universities that offer the degree program.
In 2025, College Factual analyzed 31 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Forestry Bachelor's Degree Schools ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 1,083 bachelor's degrees in forestry during the <nil> academic year.
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Choosing a Great Forestry School for Your Bachelor's Degree
Your choice of forestry 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
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 much a school focuses on forestry students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - The number of forestry students who choose to seek a bachelor's degree at the school.
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 forestry 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 forestry related body.
Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for forestry students working on their bachelor's degree.
When choosing the right school for you, it's important to arm yourself with all the facts you can. To that end, we've created a number of major-specific rankings, including this Best Forestry Bachelor's Degree Schools list to help you make the college 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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North Carolina State University is a good option for students pursuing a bachelor's degree in forestry. NC State is a fairly large public university located in the large city of Raleigh.
Bachelor's recipients from the forestry program at North Carolina State University earn $18,490 above the standard graduate in this field when they enter the workforce.
Virginia Tech is one of the best schools in the country for getting a bachelor's degree in forestry. Located in the city of Blacksburg, Virginia Tech is a public school with a fairly large student population.
Those forestry students who get their bachelor's degree from Virginia Tech receive $3,165 more than the standard forestry grad.
It is difficult to beat University of Florida if you wish to pursue a bachelor's degree in forestry. Located in the midsize city of Gainesville, UF is a public university with a very large student population.
Students who graduate with their bachelor's from the forestry program state that they receive average early career income of $26,838.
Located in the suburb of San Luis Obispo, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo is a public university with a very large student population.
Bachelor's recipients from the forestry program at California Polytechnic State University - San Luis Obispo earn $12,440 more than the standard college grad in this field when they enter the workforce.
U of I is a large public university located in the distant town of Moscow.
Forestry bachelor's degree recipients from University of Idaho receive an earnings boost of around $4,747 over the average earnings of forestry majors.
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).
Your choice of forestry 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.
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