Design & Applied Arts is of the hottest bachelor's degree programs in the United States, coming in as the #27 most popular major in the country. This means there are lots of options to choose from when you decide to get your degree.
In 2025, College Factual analyzed 18 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Design & Applied Arts Bachelor's Degree Schools in Pennsylvania ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 929 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.
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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. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.
A Great Overall School
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 school's overall Best Colleges ranking which itself looks at a collection of different factors like degree completion, educational resources, student body caliber and post-graduation earnings for the school as a whole.
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
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 the program you select can have a significant impact on your future, we've developed a number of rankings, including this Best Design & Applied Arts Bachelor's Degree Schools in Pennsylvania list, to help you choose the best school for you.
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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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.
Carnegie Mellon University is a good choice for individuals interested in a bachelor's degree in design & applied arts. Carnegie Mellon is a fairly large private not-for-profit university located in the large city of Pittsburgh.
Bachelor's recipients from the design & applied arts program at Carnegie Mellon University get $30,798 above the average college graduate with the same degree shortly after graduation.
Drexel University is a great option for students pursuing a bachelor's degree in design & applied arts. Drexel is a fairly large private not-for-profit university located in the large city of Philadelphia.
Bachelor's recipients from the design & applied arts degree program at Drexel University make $2,678 more than the standard college grad in this field when they enter the workforce.
Thomas Jefferson University is a wonderful decision for individuals pursuing a bachelor's degree in design & applied arts. Thomas Jefferson University is a medium-sized private not-for-profit university located in the city of Philadelphia.
Students who graduate with their bachelor's from the design program report average early career earnings of $36,433.
Temple is a very large public university located in the city of Philadelphia.
Bachelor's recipients from the design & applied arts major at Temple University get $8,054 above the average college graduate in this field when they enter the workforce.
Located in the fringe town of Kutztown, Kutztown University is a public university with a moderately-sized student population.
Bachelor's recipients from the design & applied arts major at Kutztown University of Pennsylvania make $4,810 above the standard college graduate in this field shortly after graduation.
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.
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. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.
