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.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 6 schools in South Carolina 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 229 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
The design bachelor's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. This section explores some of the factors we include in our ranking and how much they vary depending on the school you select. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.
A Great Overall School
A school that excels in educating for a particular major and degree level must be a great school overall as well. To make it into this list a school must rank well in our overall Best Colleges ranking. This ranking considered factors such as graduation rates, overall graduate earnings and other educational resources to identify great colleges and universities.
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
In addition to the above, you should consider some of the following factors:
Major Focus - How much a school focuses on design & applied arts students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - The number of design & applied arts students who choose to seek a bachelor's degree at the school.
Educational Resources - The amount of money and other resources allocated to students while they are pursuing their degree. These resources include such things as number of students per instructor and education expenditures per student.
Student Debt - How easy is it for design & applied arts to pay back their student loans after receiving their bachelor's degree.
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.
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 South Carolina list to help you make the college decision.
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.
Clemson University is one of the best schools in the country for getting a bachelor's degree in design & applied arts. Clemson is a very large public university located in the suburb of Clemson.
Bachelor's recipients from the design & applied arts program at Clemson University make $10,019 above the average college grad with the same degree shortly after graduation.
It is difficult to beat Winthrop University if you want to pursue a bachelor's degree in design & applied arts. Located in the small city of Rock Hill, Winthrop is a public university with a small student population.
Design & Applied Arts bachelor's degree recipients from Winthrop University earn a boost of around $3,449 above the average income of design & applied arts majors.
It's difficult to beat Anderson University South Carolina if you want to pursue a bachelor's degree in design & applied arts. Anderson University South Carolina is a small private not-for-profit university located in the city of Anderson.
After graduating, design bachelor's recipients typically earn about $34,040 in the first five years of their career.
Any student pursuing a degree in a bachelor's degree in design & applied arts needs to check out Coastal Carolina University. Located in the small city of Conway, Coastal Carolina University is a public university with a large student population.
Bachelor's graduates who receive their degree from the design program make an average of $26,076 for their early career.
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.
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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.
The design bachelor's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. This section explores some of the factors we include in our ranking and how much they vary depending on the school you select. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.
