Best Value / By Major

Best Value Colleges for Design and Applied Arts

Schools ranked by payback period — how quickly you recoup your investment through higher earnings.

50

Schools Ranked

$34,895

Avg. Earnings

1.5 yrs

Best Payback

18,678

Graduates

How we calculate value: Payback = (4 years of net price) / (major earnings - $35k baseline). A 2-year payback means you recoup your investment in 2 years through higher earnings vs. not attending college.

#	School	Net Price/yr	Major Earnings	Payback
1	University of Washington-Seattle Campus Seattle, WA · Public	$8,393	$57,318	1.5 yrs
2	Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, PA · Private	$21,526	$89,859	1.6 yrs
3	University of Florida Gainesville, FL · Public	$8,394	$50,060	2.2 yrs
4	Northeastern University Boston, MA · Private	$18,389	$59,124	3 yrs
5	University of California-Irvine Irvine, CA · Public	$13,275	$52,107	3.1 yrs
6	The University of Texas at Austin Austin, TX · Public	$16,134	$55,151	3.2 yrs
7	University of Wisconsin-Madison Madison, WI · Public	$10,364	$45,919	3.8 yrs
8	San Jose State University San Jose, CA · Public	$17,338	$52,524	4 yrs
9	Georgia Institute of Technology-Main Campus Atlanta, GA · Public	$15,415	$49,527	4.2 yrs
10	Florida State University Tallahassee, FL · Public	$11,506	$45,435	4.4 yrs
11	State University of New York at New Paltz New Paltz, NY · Public	$19,151	$51,273	4.7 yrs
12	Ohio State University-Main Campus Columbus, OH · Public	$13,273	$45,794	4.9 yrs
13	Washington University in St Louis St. Louis, MO · Private	$8,149	$41,205	5.3 yrs
14	California State University-Long Beach Long Beach, CA · Public	$11,189	$43,519	5.3 yrs
15	Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University Blacksburg, VA · Public	$18,372	$48,198	5.6 yrs
16	University of Delaware Newark, DE · Public	$17,260	$47,260	5.6 yrs
17	University of Minnesota-Twin Cities Minneapolis, MN · Public	$12,911	$43,984	5.7 yrs
18	Portland State University Portland, OR · Public	$12,964	$44,021	5.7 yrs
19	Western Washington University Bellingham, WA · Public	$16,819	$46,087	6.1 yrs
20	Washington State University Pullman, WA · Public	$14,233	$44,356	6.1 yrs
21	University of Houston Houston, TX · Public	$13,382	$43,426	6.4 yrs
22	University of Kentucky Lexington, KY · Public	$16,708	$44,776	6.8 yrs
23	Indiana University-Indianapolis Indianapolis, IN · Public	$13,306	$42,682	6.9 yrs
24	University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Champaign, IL · Public	$11,505	$41,565	7 yrs
25	George Washington University Washington, DC · Private	$21,174	$46,321	7.5 yrs
26	Metropolitan State University of Denver Denver, CO · Public	$14,679	$42,682	7.6 yrs
27	Arizona State University Campus Immersion Tempe, AZ · Public	$15,561	$42,894	7.9 yrs
28	Fashion Institute of Technology New York, NY · Public	$12,228	$41,076	8.1 yrs
29	University of Cincinnati-Main Campus Cincinnati, OH · Public	$20,867	$45,227	8.2 yrs
30	Western Michigan University Kalamazoo, MI · Public	$20,840	$44,950	8.4 yrs
31	Marist University Poughkeepsie, NY · Private	$30,498	$49,270	8.5 yrs
32	University of Idaho Moscow, ID · Public	$13,998	$41,565	8.5 yrs
33	Chapman University Orange, CA · Private	$38,525	$52,107	9 yrs
34	Wentworth Institute of Technology Boston, MA · Private	$33,733	$49,939	9 yrs
35	Boston University Boston, MA · Private	$18,458	$42,682	9.6 yrs
36	Colorado State University-Fort Collins Fort Collins, CO · Public	$15,086	$41,193	9.7 yrs
37	Lawrence Technological University Southfield, MI · Private	$33,641	$48,432	10 yrs
38	University of California-Los Angeles Los Angeles, CA · Public	$12,644	$40,017	10.1 yrs
39	San Francisco State University San Francisco, CA · Public	$16,065	$41,379	10.1 yrs
40	Purdue University-Main Campus West Lafayette, IN · Public	$8,450	$38,289	10.3 yrs
41	Miami University-Oxford Oxford, OH · Public	$23,513	$43,798	10.7 yrs
42	California State University-Monterey Bay Seaside, CA · Public	$14,319	$40,368	10.7 yrs
43	Art Center College of Design Pasadena, CA · Private	$42,992	$50,856	10.8 yrs
44	The College of Saint Rose Albany, NY · Private	$21,534	$43,000	10.8 yrs
45	East Carolina University Greenville, NC · Public	$16,654	$41,193	10.8 yrs
46	Texas State University San Marcos, TX · Public	$12,996	$39,784	10.9 yrs
47	Seattle Pacific University Seattle, WA · Private	$24,278	$43,798	11 yrs
48	Texas Christian University Fort Worth, TX · Private	$33,018	$46,966	11 yrs
49	Temple University Philadelphia, PA · Public	$21,568	$42,682	11.2 yrs
50	Clemson University Clemson, SC · Public	$20,797	$42,156	11.6 yrs

Top Earners in Design and Applied Arts

See schools ranked by earnings alone, without considering cost.

Best Value Rankings

Explore best value colleges across all majors and categories.

Payback uses earnings by major from the College Scorecard's field-of-study file, last updated June 2026, against net price from the June 2026 release. Scorecard publishes the two separately, so they are different vintages.