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.
In 2025, College Factual analyzed 59 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Design & Applied Arts Bachelor's Degree Schools in the Southeast Region ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 4,090 bachelor's degrees in design & applied arts during the 2022-2023 academic year.
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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 account for this we include a college's overall Best Colleges 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 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 the Southeast Region 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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Best Schools for Bachelor’s Students to Study Design & Applied Arts in the Southeast Region
Learn about the top ranked colleges and universities for design & applied arts students seeking a a bachelor's degree. Only those schools that rank in the top 20% of all the schools we analyze get awarded with a place on this list.
11 Top Southeast Region Schools for a Bachelor's in Design
Savannah College of Art and Design is a wonderful choice for students interested in a bachelor's degree in design & applied arts. Located in the city of Savannah, SCAD is a private not-for-profit college with a fairly large student population.
Soon after graduation, design bachelor's recipients usually make around $23,400 at the beginning of their careers.
University of Florida is one of the finest schools in the country for getting a bachelor's degree in design & applied arts. UF is a very large public university located in the medium-sized city of Gainesville.
Bachelor's recipients from the design & applied arts degree program at University of Florida earn $9,459 more than the typical graduate with the same degree when they enter the workforce.
Virginia Tech is one of the finest schools in the United States for getting a bachelor's degree in design & applied arts. Virginia Tech is a fairly large public school located in the small city of Blacksburg.
Those design & applied arts students who get their bachelor's degree from Virginia Tech receive $13,076 more than the standard design grad.
Auburn University is one of the best schools in the country for getting a bachelor's degree in design & applied arts. Located in the small city of Auburn, Auburn is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Design & Applied Arts bachelor's degree recipients from Auburn University earn a boost of around $12,900 above the typical earnings of design & applied arts graduates.
Located in the medium-sized suburb of Clemson, Clemson is a public university with a very large student population.
Design & Applied Arts bachelor's degree recipients from Clemson University receive an earnings boost of about $13,004 over the typical income of design & applied arts graduates.
Located in the city of Raleigh, NC State is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Bachelor's recipients from the design & applied arts major at North Carolina State University earn $11,245 more than the standard graduate with the same degree when they enter the workforce.
Georgia Tech is a very large public school located in the large city of Atlanta.
Those design & applied arts students who get their bachelor's degree from Georgia Institute of Technology - Main Campus make $19,009 more than the average design student.
Florida State is a very large public university located in the midsize city of Tallahassee.
Bachelor's recipients from the design & applied arts major at Florida State University get $15,459 more than the average graduate in this field shortly after graduation.
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Here are some additional great schools for Design & Applied Arts students in the Southeast Region that almost earned our Best Design & Applied Arts Bachelor's Degree Schools in the Southeast 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.