Ranked #27 in popularity, design & applied arts is one of the most sought-after bachelor's degree programs in the nation. So, there are lots of possibilities to explore when you're trying to determine where you want to get your degree.
College Factual looked at 4 colleges and universities when compiling its 2025 Best Design & Applied Arts Bachelor's Degree Schools in Iowa ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 360 bachelor's degrees in design & applied arts during the 2022-2023 academic year.
Translate your creative ideas through concept, design and digital media with a bachelor's in graphic design online from Southern New Hampshire University.
Take the first step toward a career of visual expression and doing what you love with this online associate degree from Southern New Hampshire University.
Learn to create a striking portfolio and hone the skills you need to succeed in the world of professional photography with this online digital photography degree from Southern New Hampshire University.
Choosing a Great Design & Applied Arts School for Your Bachelor's Degree
Your choice of design & applied arts for getting your bachelor's degree school matters. Important measures of a quality design program can vary widely even among the top schools. 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 bachelor's degree school is important to ensure a quality education, not just how well they do in a particular major. To take this into account we consider a college's overall Best Colleges ranking which itself looks at a host 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 bachelor's degree is one indicator we use in our analysis to find the schools that offer the highest-quality education. After all, your bachelor'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 many resources a school devotes to design & applied arts students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - How many other design & applied arts 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 much debt design & applied arts 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 design & applied arts related body.
Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for design & applied arts 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 Design & Applied Arts Bachelor's Degree Schools in Iowa ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.
To further help you make the college decision, we've developed a unique tool called College Combat that allows you to compare schools based on the factors that matter the most to you.
Go ahead and give it a try, or bookmark the link so you can check it out later.
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Translate your creative ideas through concept, design and digital media with a bachelor's in graphic design online from Southern New Hampshire University.
Learn to create a striking portfolio and hone the skills you need to succeed in the world of professional photography with this online digital photography degree from Southern New Hampshire University.
Get on the right path to the fast-paced, exciting world of video game art and design with this online bachelor's from Southern New Hampshire University.
Any student who is interested in a bachelor's degree in design & applied arts needs to take a look at Iowa State University. Iowa State is a fairly large public university located in the city of Ames.
Those design & applied arts students who get their bachelor's degree from Iowa State University receive $3,985 more than the standard design student.
University of Northern Iowa is a good choice for individuals interested in a bachelor's degree in design & applied arts. UNI is a moderately-sized public university located in the city of Cedar Falls.
Bachelor's recipients from the design & applied arts program at University of Northern Iowa get $5,057 above the average graduate with the same degree when they enter the workforce.
It is hard to beat Upper Iowa University if you want to pursue a bachelor's degree in design & applied arts. UIU is a small private not-for-profit university located in the remote area of Fayette.
Students who graduate with their bachelor's from the design program state that they receive average early career wages of $31,122.
Gain a solid grounding in your online web design classes and exercise your creative muscle with this specialized online bachelor's from Southern New Hampshire University.
Go beyond traditional software development to gain the technical expertise required to succeed in an exciting and competitive field with this online bachelor's from Southern New Hampshire University.
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.
by our College Data Analytics Team
Your choice of design & applied arts for getting your bachelor's degree school matters. Important measures of a quality design program can vary widely even among the top schools. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
