Virginia Beach, VA (population: 439,564) has eleven design schools within a 100-mile radius of its city center. Virginia Commonwealth University, the highest ranked school in this group with a design program, has a total student population of 32,172. It is the 222nd highest ranked school in the USA and the 5th highest in the state of Virginia (#1 is Washington and Lee University). To learn more about design programs in Virginia Beach, ratemyprofessors.com has reviews of design professors at Virginia Commonwealth University such as Mrs. Borel, Kristin Caskey, Jennifer Hamilton, Susan Iverson, Linda Lee, and Noelle McKown.
Design students from Virginia Beach 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 Virginia Beach-Norfolk-Newport News-NC area alone, there are 270 employed floral designers earning an average salary of $26,120. Interior designers in this area earn $40,560/yr and there are 310 employed.
Virginia Beach lies in Virginia Beach county, which is one of the 61 counties in Virginia. Overall, the Virginia Beach-Norfolk-Newport News-NC area has 735,390 total employed workers according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, with a 0.9% unemployment rate, $19.28/hr average worker wage, and a $40,100 average annual salary. Thus, about 0.424 out of every 1000 jobs in Virginia Beach are held by interior designers, and 0.372/1000 are held by floral designers.
Of the 11 design schools with a 100-mile radius of Virginia Beach, only 3 have a student population over 10k. After taking into account tuition, living expenses, and financial aid, ITT Technical Institute-Norfolk comes out as the most expensive ($22,793/yr) for design students, with Halifax Community College as the lowest, reported at only $3,190/yr.
| Name | State | Population | # of Schools | Avg School Rank | Total Programs | Distance from Virginia Beach |
| Chesapeake | VA | 223,315 | 5 | 26.9533 | 56 | 15.5 miles |
| Norfolk | VA | 234,477 | 11 | 21.2525 | 420 | 16.7 miles |
| Portsmouth | VA | 102,540 | 2 | 19.0088 | 64 | 19.6 miles |
| Hampton | VA | 147,560 | 2 | 15.4443 | 49 | 25.5 miles |
| Suffolk | VA | 84,501 | 2 | 10.9214 | 2 | 33.4 miles |
| Newport News | VA | 182,057 | 4 | 29.3064 | 58 | 35.1 miles |
| Petersburg | VA | - | 3 | 33.8633 | 70 | 82.5 miles |
| Weldon | NC | - | 1 | 13.6824 | 51 | 89.1 miles |
| Highland Springs | VA | - | 1 | 3.25189 | 0 | 90.3 miles |
| Richmond | VA | 198,179 | 22 | 25.9212 | 685 | 95.9 miles |