Finding Schools With the Right College Major

How do you find schools that offer the college major that you're interested in?

Locating schools with particular college majors can be daunting, especially for students who are eager to attend colleges beyond their own area. The search, however, doesn't have to turn into a scavenger hunt if you let the federal government help.

The federal College Navigator is a great resource to find colleges and universities offering specific majors. When you reach the home page, this is what you'll see:



To hunt for schools, you'll want to use the box on the left hand side of the home page:

To get started, hit the Browse for Programs button. You will then see a box that asks you to designate the major(s) that you'd like to find. In this example, I've used mechanical engineering.


In addition to pinpointing a major, I also designated that I wanted four-year private and/or state schools in five East Coast states. To select any state, just click on it. To choose individual states, click on the Use Map icon on the search box.


My search for schools generated a list of 60 colleges and universities that offer mechanical engineering degrees. Here is the first page of the search results:


Once you generate a list, you can click on the hyperlink of any school and gain access to an exhaustive amount of data from the federal government about the institution.

Bottom Line:

Using the College Navigator will make your search for college major much simpler.

Lynn O'Shaughnessy is author of The College Solution, an Amazon bestseller, and she also writes her own college blog at The College Solution.

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[CollegeComplete]

If you prefer to speak with someone about your potential college matches as opposed to choosing online there are opportunities available at no cost.

A great resource is CollegeComplete.com, their Education Advocates can be reached by phone at 877-543-2655 and will help you find a few schools to speak further with. The service is absolutely free and their website contains a list of questions that you should ask before deciding which school to attend.