Portland, OR (population: 573,530) has two furniture design schools within its city limits. The Art Institute of Portland, the highest ranked school in the city with a furniture design program, has a total student population of 1,925. It is the 3395th highest ranked school in the USA and the 42nd highest in the state of Oregon (#1 is Reed College). To learn more about furniture design programs in Portland, ratemyprofessors.com has reviews of furniture design professors at The Art Institute of Portland such as Melanie Andrews, Tracy Bubenik, Amery Calvelli, Tom Ciccelli, Jeffrey Durbin, and Deny Ehrlich.
Furniture Design students from Portland schools who go on to become furniture makers, craftsmen, furniture designers, furniture upholsterers, etc. have a good chance at finding employment. For example, there are 29,170 people working as commercial and industrial designers alone in the US, and their average annual salary is $61,400. Also, Textile, apparel, and furnishings workers make on average $29,010 per year and there are about 14,220 of them employed in the US today. In fact, in the Portland-Vancouver-Beaverton-WA area alone, there are 110 employed textile, apparel, and furnishings workers earning an average salary of $45,860. Commercial and industrial designers in this area earn $62,360/yr and there are 230 employed.
Portland lies in Clackamas county, which is one of the 16 counties in Oregon. Overall, the Portland-Vancouver-Beaverton-WA area has 993,470 total employed workers according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, with a 0.6% unemployment rate, $22.15/hr average worker wage, and a $46,080 average annual salary. Thus, about 0.234 out of every 1000 jobs in Portland are held by commercial and industrial designers, and 0.108/1000 are held by textile, apparel, and furnishings workers.
Of the 2 furniture design schools in Portland, only 1 has a student population over 10k. After taking into account tuition, living expenses, and financial aid, The Art Institute of Portland comes out as the most expensive ($31,420/yr) for furniture design students, with Portland Community College as the lowest, reported at only $6,829/yr.
| Name | State | Population | # of Schools | Avg School Rank | Total Programs | Distance from Portland |
| Vancouver | WA | 169,603 | 5 | 29.2795 | 91 | 6.3 miles |
| Beaverton | OR | 94,639 | 1 | 27.5128 | 6 | 8.8 miles |
| Aloha | OR | 48,328 | 1 | 25.9507 | 7 | 10.8 miles |
| Gresham | OR | 104,562 | 1 | 12.9715 | 88 | 11.0 miles |
| Oregon City | OR | - | 1 | 13.6089 | 75 | 12.9 miles |
| McMinnville | OR | - | 3 | 33.009 | 71 | 34.7 miles |
| Salem | OR | 157,890 | 12 | 32.4146 | 406 | 46.3 miles |
| The Dalles | OR | - | 1 | 11.3829 | 21 | 71.8 miles |
| Astoria | OR | - | 2 | 18.4622 | 36 | 72.0 miles |
| Corvallis | OR | 51,582 | 1 | 28.8426 | 8 | 73.6 miles |