Virginia Beach, VA (population: 439,564) has thirty-three landscape design schools within a 500-mile radius of its city center. George Washington University, the highest ranked school in this group with a landscape design program, has a total student population of 25,061. It is the 52nd highest ranked school in the USA and the highest in the state of District Of Columbia.
Landscape Design students from Virginia Beach schools who go on to become landscape designers, landscape architects, landscapers, landscape supervisors, etc. have a good chance at finding employment. For example, there are 10,510 people working as designers alone in the US, and their average annual salary is $50,420. Also, Landscaping and groundskeeping workers make on average $25,340 per year and there are about 859,960 of them employed in the US today.
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.
Of the 33 landscape design schools with a 500-mile radius of Virginia Beach, only 10 have a student population over 10k. After taking into account tuition, living expenses, and financial aid, Rhode Island School of Design comes out as the most expensive ($35,991/yr) for landscape design students, with Community College of Beaver County as the lowest, reported at only $4,128/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 |