undergradly.
Major · Architecture

Site planning, ecology, and design for a licensure-gated profession

Landscape Architecture combines design studio with hydrology, soils, and planning law to prepare you for a state-licensed practice. About 679 degrees are awarded each year across 52 colleges, and the standard credential is a five-year LAAB-accredited Bachelor of Landscape Architecture rather than a four-year BS or BA.

Schools offering
52
Annual completions
679
Typical degree level
Associate's + Bachelor's
Median earnings (5yr)
$67k

About this major

Landscape Architecture prepares you for the licensed professional practice of designing outdoor environments — site plans, parks, campuses, streetscapes, stormwater systems, and regional landscape frameworks. The CIP definition lists geology and hydrology, soils and groundcovers, project and site planning, landscape design history and theory, environmental design, and applicable law and regulation; in practice the major is built around a sequence of design studios that get critiqued in front of faculty and peers, layered with technical coursework in grading, planting, and construction documentation. Most LAAB-accredited programs award a five-year Bachelor of Landscape Architecture (BLA) rather than a four-year BS.

The major fits students who can hold spatial reasoning and ecological systems thinking in the same head — who enjoy reading a contour map, then sketching a section through a hillside, then arguing for it in a public review. Comfort with iterative design feedback matters, because studio reviews are public and direct. The work pulls in students from architecture-curious backgrounds, from horticulture and environmental science, and from civil engineering and planning who want a more design-driven seat.

On the destinations side, 679 bachelor’s degrees are awarded annually across 52 colleges, with completions concentrated at California State Polytechnic University-Pomona (62 per year), the University of Georgia (56), Cal Poly San Luis Obispo (42), Penn State, and Clemson. The career data lists Landscape architects at a $79,660 median wage with 3.5% projected growth, plus Architectural and engineering managers at $167,740 as a long-horizon mid-career outcome. Five-year median earnings for bachelor’s completers sit at $67,496.

Section 3 · Careers

Where this major leads

Occupations most often associated with this major, from the federal BLS+O*NET crosswalk. Job-growth projections and median wages are national.

Occupation Median wage Job growth Typical education
Architectural and engineering managers $168k +3.8% Bachelor's degree
Landscape architects $80k +3.5% Bachelor's degree
Architecture teachers, postsecondary $101k +2.0% Doctoral or professional degree
Section 4 · Earnings

Earnings at a glance

Median graduate earnings from the federal College Scorecard, 5 and 10 years out.

Median 5-year earnings

$67k

Who this major is for

You may thrive here if the iterative public critique of design studio energizes rather than drains you, if you can hold ecology and aesthetics together when a hillside needs both a stormwater plan and a planting palette, if the licensure climb (LAAB-accredited BLA, LARE exam, state license, often a state supplemental) reads as a professional gate rather than a barrier, if you’re drawn toward the public-agency or green-infrastructure side of the field where 3.5% projected growth in the Landscape architects data still translates into steady work, and if the $79,660 median wage and the long mid-career arc into Architectural and engineering managers feels like a worthwhile payoff for a five-year accredited degree.

Reconsider this route if you want a four-year exit into independent practice — the standard credential is a five-year BLA and the LARE gates the title in nearly every state. Pause if you’re sensitive to construction and AEC cycles, since private-firm hiring tracks the building economy more closely than the headline 3.5% growth suggests. The path also tightens if your interest is really in horticulture, landscaping operations, or urban planning policy — the cross-referenced 01.0605 Landscaping and Groundskeeping CIP and the 04.0301 Urban Planning CIP (654 annual completions) are different majors with different licenses and pay floors. And if you’d rather start at a non-accredited environmental-design program and pivot, expect to add an MLA (typically two to three additional years) to qualify for the LARE.

Section 6 · Where to study

Top colleges for Landscape Architecture

Ranked by annual completions at the associate's or bachelor's level — a proxy for program scale.

College Location Assoc. Bach. Total
California State Polytechnic University-Pomona Pomona, CA 0 62 62
University of Georgia Athens, GA 0 56 56
California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo San Luis Obispo, CA 0 42 42
Pennsylvania State University-Main Campus University Park, PA 0 29 29
Clemson University Clemson, SC 0 25 25
University of California-Berkeley Berkeley, CA 0 25 25
Utah State University Logan, UT 0 24 24
Texas A&M University-College Station College Station, TX 0 22 22
Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College Baton Rouge, LA 0 21 21
University of Wisconsin-Madison Madison, WI 0 20 20
Section 7 · Explore sideways

Related majors to explore

Architectural and Building Sciences/Technology

3,888 completions/yr

Architecture

3,649 completions/yr

Architectural Engineering

901 completions/yr

City/Urban, Community, and Regional Planning

654 completions/yr

Interior Architecture

653 completions/yr

Environmental Design/Architecture

552 completions/yr
Section 9 · Frequently asked

Common questions

Do I need a specific accredited degree to become a licensed landscape architect?
Yes — nearly every state requires a degree from a program accredited by the Landscape Architectural Accreditation Board (LAAB) to sit for the Landscape Architect Registration Examination (LARE). The standard route is a five-year Bachelor of Landscape Architecture (BLA), which is professionally accredited; a generic four-year BS in environmental design or a horticulture degree usually does not qualify you for the LARE without an additional MLA. The $79,660 median wage in the packet for Landscape architects reflects this licensed workforce.
What do Landscape Architecture majors actually study day-to-day?
Studio is the spine of the major: site analysis, grading and drainage, planting design, and master-planning projects critiqued in front of faculty and peers. Around studio you take geology and hydrology, soils and horticultural systems, history and theory of landscape design, environmental design, and applicable law and regulation — the curriculum mapped directly to the CIP definition. Software fluency in CAD, GIS, Adobe, and increasingly Rhino and Lumion is expected by the third year.
What kinds of jobs do Landscape Architecture graduates end up in?
The career packet centers on Landscape architects at a $79,660 median wage with 3.5% projected growth, working at private design firms, multidisciplinary AEC offices, public agencies (state DOT, parks departments, municipal planning), and increasingly on green-infrastructure and climate-resilience teams. Architectural and engineering managers shows up in the data at $167,740, but that is a mid-career outcome reached after a decade-plus of licensed practice and project leadership. Postsecondary teaching at $101,480 requires a doctoral or terminal-degree path.
How big is this major nationally, and where is it concentrated?
It is a small field — only 679 bachelor's completions across 52 colleges per year, with the LAAB-accredited program list itself sitting near 80 institutions nationally. Completions concentrate at California State Polytechnic University-Pomona (62), the University of Georgia (56), Cal Poly San Luis Obispo (42), Penn State (29), and Clemson (25). The land-grant universities (UGA, Penn State, Clemson, Utah State, Texas A&M, LSU, Wisconsin-Madison) anchor the program list, alongside the two California Polytechnics and Berkeley.
How is this different from Architecture, Environmental Design, or Urban Planning?
Architecture (3,649 annual completions in the packet) focuses on buildings and the NCARB licensure track; Environmental Design/Architecture (552 completions) is a broader, often non-accredited design degree; City/Urban, Community, and Regional Planning (654 completions) leads to the AICP credential and policy-side work, not site design. Landscape Architecture sits between them — design of outdoor space at scales from a courtyard to a regional watershed — and is the only one of the four where the LARE state license gates the title and most public projects.
How portable is the license if I move states?
Reasonably portable, but not automatic. Most states accept the Council of Landscape Architectural Registration Boards (CLARB) certification for reciprocity, which requires you to have already passed the LARE and met the experience requirements. Some states layer in a state-specific supplemental exam — California, Florida, Hawaii, and Nevada are common examples — and stamp requirements for plans submitted for permit vary. Plan on re-applying with each state board rather than transferring a license outright.