Virginia Beach, VA (population: 439,564) has five game design schools within a 100-mile radius of its city center. Virginia Commonwealth University, the highest ranked school in this group with a game 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 game design programs in Virginia Beach, ratemyprofessors.com has reviews of game design professors at Virginia Commonwealth University such as Mrs. Borel, Kristin Caskey, Jennifer Hamilton, Susan Iverson, Linda Lee, and Noelle McKown.
Game Design students from Virginia Beach schools who go on to become video game engineers, game designers, video game designers, game developers, etc. have a good chance at finding employment. For example, there are 495,500 people working as computer software engineers, applications alone in the US, and their average annual salary is $90,170. Also, Computer software engineers, systems software make on average $96,620 per year and there are about 385,200 of them employed in the US today. In fact, in the Virginia Beach-Norfolk-Newport News-NC area alone, there are 1,910 employed computer software engineers, systems software earning an average salary of $97,380. Computer software engineers, applications in this area earn $76,960/yr and there are 2,870 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 3.903 out of every 1000 jobs in Virginia Beach are held by computer software engineers, applications, and 2.591/1000 are held by computer software engineers, systems software.
Of the 5 game design schools with a 100-mile radius of Virginia Beach, only 1 has 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 game design students, with Elizabeth City State University as the lowest, reported at only $3,335/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 |