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 4 schools in Maryland 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 213 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 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 different 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 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 Maryland 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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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.
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Maryland Institute College of Art is a great choice for individuals interested in a bachelor's degree in design & applied arts. MICA is a small private not-for-profit college located in the large city of Baltimore.
Soon after graduation, design bachelor's recipients usually earn around $27,246 at the beginning of their careers.
Stevenson University is a wonderful option for individuals interested in a bachelor's degree in design & applied arts. Located in the large suburb of Owings Mills, Stevenson is a private not-for-profit university with a small student population.
Bachelor's graduates who receive their degree from the design program make about $27,969 in the first couple years of their career.
It's difficult to beat University of Maryland - Baltimore County if you want to pursue a bachelor's degree in design & applied arts. UMBC is a fairly large public university located in the large suburb of Baltimore.
Bachelor's recipients from the design & applied arts degree program at University of Maryland - Baltimore County make $4,275 above the standard college graduate with the same degree shortly after graduation.
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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.
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. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
