2025 Best Design & Applied Arts Bachelor's Degree Schools in Arizona

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 5 schools in Arizona 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 406 bachelor's degrees in design & applied arts during the 2022-2023 academic year.

Jump to one of the following sections: * Our Methodology

• Best Bachelor’s Degree Schools List

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 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.

More Ways to Rank Design & Applied Arts Schools

The design school you choose to invest your time and money in matters. To help you make the decision that is right for you, we've developed a number of major-specific rankings, including this list of the Best Design & Applied Arts Bachelor's Degree Schools in Arizona.

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.

Best Schools for Bachelor’s Students to Study Design & Applied Arts in Arizona

The following list ranks the best colleges and universities for pursuing a bachelor's degree in design & applied arts.

Top Arizona Schools for a Bachelor's in Design

1

Arizona State University - Tempe
Tempe, AZ

198 Annual Graduates

$35,960 Median Starting Salary

$32,770 Median Student Debt

Arizona State University - Tempe is one of the finest schools in the country for getting a bachelor's degree in design & applied arts. ASU - Tempe is a fairly large public university located in the medium-sized city of Tempe.

Bachelor's students who receive their degree from the design program make about $35,960 in the first couple years of working.

More information about a bachelor’s in design & applied arts from Arizona State University - Tempe

2

University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ

22 Annual Graduates

Every student pursuing a degree in a bachelor's degree in design & applied arts has to check out University of Arizona. Located in the large city of Tucson, University of Arizona is a public university with a fairly large student population.More information about a bachelor’s in design & applied arts from University of Arizona

3

Northern Arizona University
Flagstaff, AZ

77 Annual Graduates

$33,964 Median Starting Salary

$34,556 Median Student Debt

Every student pursuing a degree in a bachelor's degree in design & applied arts needs to check out Northern Arizona University. Located in the city of Flagstaff, NAU is a public university with a fairly large student population.

Bachelor's graduates who receive their degree from the design program make around $33,964 for their early career.

More information about a bachelor’s in design & applied arts from Northern Arizona University

4

Grand Canyon University
Phoenix, AZ

89 Annual Graduates

$38,976 Median Starting Salary

Any student pursuing a degree in a bachelor's degree in design & applied arts needs to look into Grand Canyon University. Located in the city of Phoenix, Grand Canyon University is a private for-profit university with a very large student population.

Those design & applied arts students who get their bachelor's degree from Grand Canyon University make $3,876 more than the standard design graduate.

More information about a bachelor’s in design & applied arts from Grand Canyon University

5

Sessions College for Professional Design
Tempe, AZ

10 Annual Graduates

Located in the midsize city of Tempe, Sessions College is a private for-profit college with a fairly small student population.More information about a bachelor’s in design & applied arts from Sessions College for Professional Design

Best Design & Applied Arts Colleges in the Southwest Region

Explore all the Best Design & Applied Arts Colleges in the Southwest Area or other specific states within that region.

State	Colleges	Degrees Awarded
Texas	245	934
Oklahoma	190	165

View All Rankings >

Design & Applied Arts Related Rankings by Major

Design & Applied Arts is one of 10 different types of Visual & Performing Arts programs to choose from.

Design Concentrations

Major	Annual Graduates
Graphic Design	151
Interior Design	97
Fashion Design	59
Industrial Design	39
Game & Interactive Media Design	30
Visual Communications	27
Other Design & Applied Arts	2
Illustration	1

Most Popular Majors Related to Design

Related Major	Annual Graduates
Fine & Studio Arts	445
Film, Video & Photographic Arts	382
Music	113
Drama & Theater Arts	105
General Visual & Performing Arts	94
Dance	51
Arts & Media Management	24

Notes and References

• 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.
• Some other college data, including much of the graduate earnings data, comes from the U.S. Department of Education’s (College Scorecard). More about our data sources and methodologies.