March/April 2017
Communities: Education
The Rise and Fall of Undergraduate Engineering Programs
Over the years, the numbers of bachelor’s programs in various engineering disciplines have fluctuated. Accreditation data provides a glimpse at trends. Some disciplines have seen steady growth, such as civil engineering, while others have demonstrated more dramatic changes. The number of accredited bioengineering and biomedical undergraduate programs, for example, more than doubled between 2005 and 2015. And although the number of accredited construction engineering programs is small, the figure almost tripled over those years.
Other disciplines have experienced drops in the number of their accredited undergraduate programs, such as agricultural engineering, or have flatlined, such as manufacturing engineering.
Here are some of the bachelor’s degree programs accredited by ABET’s Engineering Accreditation Commission.
Comparison of Disciplines
SOURCE: ABET