If you pursue a bachelor's degree in design & applied arts, you won't be alone. The field of study is the #27 most popular program in the country. This makes choosing the right school a hard decision.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 14 schools in Ohio to determine which ones were the best for design & applied arts students pursuing a bachelor's degree. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 972 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. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
Quality Overall Is Important
The overall quality of a bachelor's degree school is important to ensure a good 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 combination of various factors like degree completion, educational resources, student body caliber and post-graduation earnings for the school as a whole.
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 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 full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for design & applied arts 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 Design & Applied Arts Bachelor's Degree Schools in Ohio list to help you make the college 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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Any student pursuing a degree in a bachelor's degree in design & applied arts needs to check out University of Cincinnati - Main Campus. Located in the city of Cincinnati, UC is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Bachelor's recipients from the design & applied arts program at University of Cincinnati - Main Campus make $20,633 above the standard college grad with the same degree when they enter the workforce.
It's hard to beat Kent State University at Kent if you wish to pursue a bachelor's degree in design & applied arts. Located in the large suburb of Kent, Kent State is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Those design & applied arts students who get their bachelor's degree from Kent State University at Kent earn $4,458 more than the average design grad.
Every student who is interested in a bachelor's degree in design & applied arts needs to check out Ohio State University - Main Campus. Located in the city of Columbus, Ohio State is a public university with a very large student population.
Those design & applied arts students who get their bachelor's degree from Ohio State University - Main Campus earn $13,283 more than the average design student.
Columbus College of Art and Design is a great choice for individuals interested in a bachelor's degree in design & applied arts. CCAD is a fairly small private not-for-profit college located in the large city of Columbus.
Students who graduate with their bachelor's from the design program report average early career wages of $27,970.
Located in the fringe town of Oxford, Miami University - Oxford is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Design & Applied Arts bachelor's degree recipients from Miami University - Oxford earn a boost of about $15,402 over the typical earnings of design & applied arts majors.
Located in the fringe town of Bowling Green, BGSU is a public university with a large student population.
Those design & applied arts students who get their bachelor's degree from Bowling Green State University - Main Campus earn $3,752 more than the typical design grad.
Cedarville is a moderately-sized private not-for-profit university located in the rural area of Cedarville.
Design & Applied Arts bachelor's degree recipients from Cedarville University receive an earnings boost of about $3,875 above the typical earnings of design & applied arts majors.
Located in the midsize city of Akron, University of Akron Main Campus is a public university with a large student population.
Design & Applied Arts bachelor's degree recipients from University of Akron Main Campus get an earnings boost of around $7,963 above the average earnings of design & applied arts graduates.
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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.
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. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
