Mechanical Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

If you are interested in studying mechanical engineering, you may want to check out the program at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. The following information will help you decide if it is a good fit for you.

RPI is located in Troy, New York and approximately 7,501 students attend the school each year. Of the 1,582 students who graduated with a bachelor’s degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 2021, 239 of them were mechanical engineering majors.

Want to know more about the career opportunities in this field? Check out the Careers in Mechanical Engineering section at the bottom of this page.

RPI Mechanical Engineering Degrees Available

• Bachelor’s Degree in ME
• Master’s Degree in ME
• Doctorate Degree in ME

RPI Mechanical Engineering Rankings

The following rankings from College Factual show how the ME progam at RPI compares to programs at other colleges and universities.

Note: Although rankings can help you see some information about a school, it's not a good idea to depend on them alone. Be sure to check out other things about the school before making your decision to attend.

Bachelor’s Degree Overall Quality & Other Notable Rankings

The ME major at RPI is not ranked on College Factual’s Best Colleges and Universities for Mechanical Engineering. This could be for a number of reasons, such as not having enough data on the major or school to make an accurate assessment of its quality.

Ranking Type	Rank
Most Focused Mechanical Engineering Doctor’s Degree Schools	7
Most Focused Mechanical Engineering Bachelor’s Degree Schools	16
Most Popular Mechanical Engineering Schools	35
Most Popular Mechanical Engineering Doctor’s Degree Schools	43
Most Popular Mechanical Engineering Master’s Degree Schools	61

In 2021, 38 students received their master’s degree in ME from RPI. This makes it the #62 most popular school for ME master’s degree candidates in the country.

There were 12 students who received their doctoral degrees in ME, making the school the #44 most popular school in the United States for this category of students.

Earnings of RPI ME Graduates

The median salary of ME students who receive their bachelor's degree at RPI is $65,319. This is great news for graduates of the program, since this figure is 0% higher than the national average of $65,190 for all ME bachelor's degree recipients.

ME Student Demographics at RPI

Take a look at the following statistics related to the make-up of the ME majors at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

RPI Mechanical Engineering Bachelor’s Program

Of the 239 students who earned a bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering from RPI in 2020-2021, 77% were men and 23% were women. The typical ME bachelor's degree program is made up of only 17% women. So female students are more repesented at RPI since its program graduates 6% more women than average.

Prospective students may be interested in knowing that this school graduates 2% more racial-ethnic minorities in its ME bachelor's program than the national average.*

The following table and chart show the race/ethnicity for students who recently graduated from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute with a bachelor's in ME.

Race/Ethnicity	Number of Students
Asian	27
Black or African American	9
Hispanic or Latino	19
White	119
International Students	43
Other Races/Ethnicities	22

RPI Mechanical Engineering Master’s Program

During the 2020-2021 academic year, 38 students graduated with a master's degree in ME from RPI. About 66% were men and 34% were women.

The following table and chart show the race/ethnicity for students who recently graduated from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute with a master's in ME.

Race/Ethnicity	Number of Students
Asian	2
Black or African American	1
Hispanic or Latino	4
White	19
International Students	11
Other Races/Ethnicities	1

RPI also has a doctoral program available in ME. In 2021, 12 students graduated with a doctor's degree in this field.

Related Majors

• Systems Engineering
• Environmental Engineering
• Nuclear Engineering
• Materials Engineering
• Industrial Engineering

Careers That ME Grads May Go Into

A degree in ME can lead to the following careers. Since job numbers and average salaries can vary by geographic location, we have only included the numbers for NY, the home state for Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Occupation	Jobs in NY	Average Salary in NY
Mechanical Engineers	11,280	$91,820
Cost Estimators	10,150	$75,730
Architectural and Engineering Managers	7,330	$161,670
Engineering Professors	2,900	$127,010
Aerospace Engineers	320	$115,420

References

*The racial-ethnic minorities count is calculated by taking the total number of students and subtracting white students, international students, and students whose race/ethnicity was unknown. This number is then divided by the total number of students at the school to obtain the racial-ethnic minorities percentage.

• College Factual
• National Center for Education Statistics
• O*NET Online
• Image Credit: By UpstateNYer under License

More about our data sources and methodologies.