Boston, MA (population: 610,407) has twenty-two art and design schools within its city limits. Boston University, the highest ranked school in the city with an art and design program, has a total student population of 31,960. It is the 32nd highest ranked school in the USA and the 5th highest in the state of Massachusetts (#1 is Harvard University). To learn more about art and design programs in Boston, ratemyprofessors.com has reviews of art and design professors at Boston University such as Scout Stevenson.
Art and Design students from Boston schools who go on to become designers, ad designers, advertising designers, commercial designers, etc. have a good chance at finding employment. For example, there are 8,900 people working as fine artists, including painters, sculptors, and illustrators alone in the US, and their average annual salary is $50,630. Also, Electrical and electronics drafters make on average $54,800 per year and there are about 30,590 of them employed in the US today. In fact, in the Boston-Cambridge-Quincy NECTA area alone, there are 450 employed electrical and electronics drafters earning an average salary of $64,930. Fine artists, including painters, sculptors, and illustrators in this area earn $41,930/yr and there are 280 employed.
Boston lies in Suffolk county, which is one of the 12 counties in Massachusetts. Overall, the Boston-Cambridge-Quincy NECTA area has 1,685,900 total employed workers according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, with a 0.6% unemployment rate, $28.04/hr average worker wage, and a $58,330 average annual salary. Thus, about 0.167 out of every 1000 jobs in Boston are held by fine artists, including painters, sculptors, and illustrators, and 0.268/1000 are held by electrical and electronics drafters.
Of the 22 art and design schools in Boston, only 4 have a student population over 10k. After taking into account tuition, living expenses, and financial aid, North Bennet Street School comes out as the most expensive ($61,218/yr) for art and design students, with Bunker Hill Community College as the lowest, reported at only $7,745/yr.
| Name | State | Population | # of Schools | Avg School Rank | Total Programs | Distance from Boston |
| Chelsea | MA | 44,282 | 1 | 26.6747 | 5 | 4.2 miles |
| Somerville | MA | 75,604 | 1 | 21.9743 | 9 | 5.4 miles |
| Cambridge | MA | 108,135 | 7 | 39.5149 | 268 | 5.8 miles |
| Brookline | MA | 55,248 | 4 | 18.3285 | 60 | 6.3 miles |
| Malden | MA | 55,904 | 4 | 25.7416 | 22 | 6.6 miles |
| Milton | MA | - | 2 | 30.0286 | 66 | 6.7 miles |
| Brighton | MA | - | 3 | 22.1394 | 9 | 7.0 miles |
| Chestnut Hill | MA | - | 2 | 53.2355 | 134 | 7.8 miles |
| Watertown | MA | - | 4 | 19.8045 | 105 | 8.6 miles |
| Weymouth | MA | 55,115 | 0 | - | 0 | 9.7 miles |
| Needham | MA | - | 1 | 85.1852 | 4 | 11.6 miles |
| Waltham | MA | 60,722 | 3 | 63.6138 | 127 | 11.8 miles |
| Woburn | MA | - | 3 | 29.2811 | 25 | 11.8 miles |
| Peabody | MA | 51,672 | 0 | - | 0 | 13.4 miles |
| Wellesley | MA | - | 2 | 79.2832 | 74 | 14.2 miles |
| Brockton | MA | 92,742 | 6 | 30.966 | 101 | 18.0 miles |
| Billerica | MA | 40,949 | 1 | 35.5405 | 2 | 19.5 miles |
| Framingham | MA | 64,549 | 2 | 43.2155 | 61 | 21.6 miles |
| North Andover | MA | - | 1 | 30.19 | 56 | 25.5 miles |
| Lowell | MA | 104,063 | 4 | 27.7393 | 100 | 25.8 miles |
| North Attleborough | MA | 43,307 | 0 | - | 0 | 30.1 miles |
| Taunton | MA | 55,679 | 1 | 23.0007 | 3 | 30.6 miles |
| Attleboro | MA | 42,840 | 0 | - | 0 | 31.8 miles |
| Woonsocket | RI | 42,967 | 0 | - | 0 | 34.0 miles |
| Nashua | NH | 86,706 | 4 | 32.4184 | 139 | 37.1 miles |
| Pawtucket | RI | 71,155 | 3 | 14.7207 | 9 | 37.1 miles |
| Smithfield | RI | - | 2 | 41.9902 | 100 | 39.7 miles |
| Leominster | MA | 41,104 | 0 | - | 0 | 40.3 miles |
| Worcester | MA | 174,854 | 11 | 28.6428 | 380 | 40.7 miles |
| East Providence | RI | 48,249 | 1 | 29.3002 | 11 | 41.2 miles |