Aerospace Engineering Degrees
Aerospace engineering is a fast-paced, dynamic discipline that focuses on the design, maintenance, and enhancement of all types of airborne vehicles, from airplanes to missiles to space shuttles. In college, aerospace engineering majors are probably the only students who don't have to worry that teachers will reprimand them for having their "head in the clouds." In fact, that's where their heads belong!
If you're interested in pursuing a major in aerospace engineering or aeronautics, you've come to the right place. There is a long list of colleges and universities that offer such programs, and finding the time to research and compare each and every one would be nearly impossible. But that's our job at Best Value Schools, and that's exactly what we've done. Using our characteristic approach, which combines an assessment of both cost and quality to bring you the very best in low cost, high reward education, we've put together a list of the 30 best value aerospace engineering degrees. Read more about our methodology here, or scroll down to see which schools made the final cut.
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Top 25 Aerospace Engineering Schools
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Ranking Factors
To begin, we acquired a list of all the colleges and universities in the United States that offer bachelor's degrees in aerospace engineering (courtesy of College Navigator). Next, we compared this set to a list of all ABET-accredited programs. Schools needed to have earned specific accreditation for their aerospace engineering degrees in order to qualify; it was not sufficient to have an ABET-accredited general engineering curriculum. From here, we collected data on five equally weighted metrics:
Graduation Rate: Specifically, graduation rate refers to the percentage of students who earn their degree within 150% of normal time, defined to be six years for a typical four-year undergraduate degree. While this statistic is not specific to aerospace engineering programs, we thought it was important to include it as an indicator of overall student success, as well as of the schools' performance on measures of student "output" (as opposed to measures of "input," ex. selectivity). Source: College Navigator.
Accreditation Date: Achieving accreditation status is a big deal for academic programs; it serves as an indication that the curriculum meets rigorous, nationwide standards and demonstrates an ability to prepare students for relevant career fields. In order to make the most of this metric, we looked at each degree's accreditation date. In general, schools that have been accredited for longer periods of time also have more comprehensive programs, have had more opportunities to revise and enhance the curriculum, and have had more time to attract top-tier faculty. Source: Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET).
Degree Popularity: Many colleges – especially large universities – offer a vast array of engineering degrees. When freshman engineering majors have so many options, what does it take for them to choose sky and space over other specialties? We considered that particularly robust aerospace engineering programs likely attract a large number of aspiring engineers, relative to other engineering degrees available at the school. Thus, we assessed schools on degree popularity, or the percentage of students earning aerospace degrees out of all engineering degrees awarded in the most recent school year. Source: College Navigator.
Engineering Popularity: On a related note, we also considered the benefit of attending a college or university with broad strengths in engineering and STEM on the whole, such as tech institutes. In general, these schools funnel more money into their engineering programs, have more and better engineering facilities, and house a larger population of like-minded engineering students. Thus, we assessed schools on engineering popularity, or the percentage of students earning an engineering degree (of any kind) out of all undergraduate degrees awarded in the most recent school year. Source: College Navigator.
Net Price: Of course, no best value ranking would be complete without an assessment of cost. We judged schools on their overall affordability by looking at their self-reported net price. Note that this figure is distinct from tuition, in that it "is generated by subtracting the average amount of federal, state/local government, or institutional grant or scholarship aid from the total cost of attendance. Total cost of attendance is the sum of published tuition and required fees (lower of in-district or in-state), books and supplies, and the weighted average for room and board and other expenses." Source: College Navigator.
We gave each school points for their performance in each of the aforementioned categories, then summed the amounts to calculate raw totals. Lastly, we "curved" these calculations so that the school with the most points received an A+ score (or 100 points), adjusting the other scores in kind. You can find the 25 highest-scoring schools below, along with descriptions of their top aerospace engineering degree programs.
Sources:
College Navigator
Accrediting Board for Engineering & Technology (ABET)
The American Institute of Aeronautics & Astronautics (AIAA)
CNN – Highest Paid Graduates
