2023 Best Value Design & Applied Arts Schools in District of Columbia

Identifying Quality Schools at More Affordable Prices

Finding the Best Design & Applied Arts School for You

With 33 degrees and certificates handed out in 2020-2021, design and applied arts is the #86 most popular major in District of Columbia.

There are lots of options to pick from today when trying to decide which program is right for you. You can choose a traditional brick and mortar school, or with the growth of online education, you can attend a school half-way across the country without even leaving your house. Also there are many trade schools that offer short-term programs that open up more career options.

To help you arm yourself with the information you need to make your decision, Grad Degree Search has developed this Best Value Design & Applied Arts Schools in District of Columbia ranking. Our analysis looked at 2 schools in District of Columbia to see which programs offered the best value experiences for design students with the aim of identifying those quality schools that are more affordable than some of their counterparts.

When determining this ranking, we place a high emphasis on the school's quality as well as its sticker price. Even though a college may be affordable, it may not offer value. More specifically, we discount our quality score by the published tuition and fees charged by a school. This gives the cost per unit of quality for each college. The value is determined by how much quality your dollar buys.

Our calculations use out-of-state tuition and fees in our nationwide and regional rankings. Average in-state tuition and fees are used for our statewide rankings.

2023 Best Value Design & Applied Arts Schools in District of Columbia

Check out the design programs at these schools if you want to get the best value for your educational dollar.

Best District of Columbia Schools for Affordable Quality in Design & Applied Arts

#1

American University

Washington, DC

17 Degrees

#3 in Quality in District of Columbia

$51,334 Average Tuition & Fees

Our 2023 rankings named American University the best value school in District of Columbia for design and applied arts students. Located in the city of Washington, The American University is a private not-for-profit college with a fairly large student population.

In-state tuition fees for undergraduate students at The American University are $51,334 per year.

The American University did well in our overall quality rankings, too. It placed #3 on our Best Design & Applied Arts Schools in District of Columbia list.

Read full report on Design & Applied Arts at American University

#2

George Washington University

Washington, DC

16 Degrees

#2 in Quality in District of Columbia

$57,984 Average Tuition & Fees

The excellent programs at George Washington University helped the school earn the #2 place on this year’s ranking of the best design and applied arts schools in District of Columbia. GWU is a fairly large private not-for-profit school located in the city of Washington.

In-state tuition fees for undergraduate students at GWU are $57,984 per year.

GWU did well in our overall quality rankings, too. It placed #2 on our Best Design & Applied Arts Schools in District of Columbia list.

Full Design & Applied Arts at George Washington University Report

Best Value Design & Applied Arts Colleges in the Middle Atlantic Region

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

Majors Related to Design

One of 9 majors within the area of study, design and applied arts has other similar majors worth exploring.

Most Popular Majors Related to Design

Notes and References

*These averages are for the top 2 schools only.

• 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.

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