Boston, MA (population: 610,407) has fifteen design schools within its city limits. Boston University, the highest ranked school in the city with a 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 design programs in Boston, ratemyprofessors.com has reviews of design professors at Boston University such as Scout Stevenson.
Design students from Boston schools who go on to become interior designers, architecture designers, designers, graphic designers, etc. have a good chance at finding employment. For example, there are 46,010 people working as interior designers alone in the US, and their average annual salary is $51,990. Also, Floral designers make on average $24,940 per year and there are about 51,470 of them employed in the US today. In fact, in the Boston-Cambridge-Quincy NECTA area alone, there are 930 employed floral designers earning an average salary of $30,560. Interior designers in this area earn $58,920/yr and there are 920 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 0.545 out of every 1000 jobs in Boston are held by interior designers, and 0.549/1000 are held by floral designers.
Of the 15 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 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 |