As of October 2026, ABET's Accredited Program Search lists 32 accredited US surveying and geomatics programs — 25 bachelor's degrees and 7 associate degrees, all with NSPS as the lead society.
They run at universities such as Penn State (Wilkes-Barre), Ferris State and New Mexico State, and at community and technical colleges such as Tyler Junior College and Cincinnati State.
The directory below groups them by level and by state, with ABET status, online options and how to choose.
Which universities offer a bachelor's in surveying or geomatics?
Surveying programs do not share one name.
The NCEES Model Law counts surveying, surveying engineering, mapping, geodesy and geomatics among the degrees it treats as surveying education — and the Model Law is NCEES's template, not a state's law.
ABET's current list carries several of those labels — program names on it include surveying, surveying engineering, mapping and geomatics — plus names such as Geospatial Engineering, Geospatial Science and Land Surveying.
Of the 25 accredited bachelor's programs, 6 sit under ABET's Engineering Accreditation Commission (EAC), 5 under the Engineering Technology Accreditation Commission (ETAC) and 14 under the Applied and Natural Science Accreditation Commission (ANSAC).
The EAC six include Ferris State University's Surveying Engineering BS, California State University, Fresno's Geomatics Engineering BS, Florida Atlantic University's Geomatics Engineering B.S.G.E. and Penn State's Surveying Engineering BS at the Wilkes-Barre campus.
The table lists all 25 as ABET showed them in October 2026.
| State | School | Program | ABET commission |
|---|---|---|---|
| AK | University of Alaska Anchorage | Geomatics — BS | ANSAC |
| AL | Troy University | Surveying & Geomatics Sciences — Bachelor of Science | ANSAC |
| CA | California State Polytechnic University, Pomona | Geospatial Engineering option in Civil Engineering — BS | EAC |
| CA | California State University, Fresno | Geomatics Engineering — BS | EAC |
| FL | Florida Atlantic University | Geomatics Engineering — B.S.G.E. | EAC |
| FL | University of Florida | Geomatics — Bachelor of Science in Geomatics | ANSAC |
| ID | Idaho State University | Surveying and Geomatics Engineering Technology — Bachelor of Science | ETAC |
| LA | Nicholls State University | Geomatics — Bachelor of Science | ANSAC |
| ME | University of Maine | Surveying Engineering Technology — Bachelor of Science | ETAC |
| MI | Ferris State University | Surveying Engineering — BS | EAC |
| MI | Michigan Technological University | Geospatial Engineering — Bachelor of Science | EAC |
| NC | North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University | Geomatics — Bachelor of Science | ANSAC |
| NJ | New Jersey Institute of Technology | Surveying Engineering Technology — BS | ETAC |
| NM | New Mexico State University | Geomatics — BS in Geomatics | ANSAC |
| NY | State University of New York College of Technology at Alfred | Surveying and Geomatics Engineering Technology — BS | ETAC |
| OH | Cincinnati State Technical and Community College | Land Surveying — Bachelor's of Applied Science | ANSAC |
| OH | The University of Akron | Surveying and Mapping — B.S. | ANSAC |
| OR | Oregon Institute of Technology | Geomatics - option in Surveying — BS | ANSAC |
| PA | The Pennsylvania State University | Surveying Engineering — BS (Wilkes-Barre campus) | EAC |
| PR | Polytechnic University of Puerto Rico | Land Surveying and Mapping — BS | ANSAC |
| PR | University of Puerto Rico - Mayaguez Campus | Surveying and Topography — BS in Surveying and Topography | ANSAC |
| TN | East Tennessee State University | Surveying and Mapping Science — BS | ANSAC |
| TX | Texas A&M University - Corpus Christi | Geospatial Science — Bachelor of Science | ANSAC |
| UT | Utah Valley University | Surveying and Mapping — B.S. | ANSAC |
| WV | Fairmont State University | Surveying and Geomatics Engineering Technology — BS | ETAC |
Three program names deserve a second look.
New Mexico State University's accredited degree is the BS in Geomatics — ABET shows the university's older Surveying Engineering BS accreditation ended September 30, 2019.
Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi's accredited program is titled Geospatial Science rather than surveying, and at the University of Florida only the Surveying and Mapping specialization of the Geomatics BS holds the accreditation, per the university's own page.
Two programs with familiar names are not on the current list at all.
ABET shows Purdue's Land Surveying and Geomatics Engineering BS accredited from October 1, 1984 through September 30, 2008, and Ohio State's Geomatics Engineering BS accreditation ending September 30, 2011, with its Surveying BS having ended in 2002.
Accreditation is a snapshot
Which community and technical colleges offer surveying programs?
Seven of the 32 accredited programs are associate degrees, at community and technical colleges and on university campuses alike.
The table lists all seven.
School names follow ABET's program rows, so check a school's own site for its current name.
| State | School | Program | ABET commission |
|---|---|---|---|
| NY | Alfred State College | Surveying Engineering Technology — AAS | ETAC |
| NY | State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry | Land Surveying Technology — Associate in Applied Science | ETAC |
| OH | Cincinnati State Technical and Community College (listed by ABET as Cincinnati Technical College) | Surveying and Mapping — Associate of Applied Science | ANSAC |
| OH | The University of Akron | Land Surveying — A.A.S. | ANSAC |
| PA | The Pennsylvania State University | Surveying Engineering Technology — Associate in Engineering Technology (Wilkes-Barre) | ETAC |
| PR | University of Puerto Rico at Bayamon | Construction, Surveying and Roads Engineering Technology — Associate | ETAC |
| TX | Tyler Junior College | Surveying and Geomatics — Associate of Applied Science | ANSAC |
Tyler Junior College's Surveying and Geomatics AAS holds ANSAC accreditation, and Penn State's associate program shares the Wilkes-Barre campus with its bachelor's.
Accreditation moves here too: ABET shows Pennsylvania College of Technology's Surveying Technology AAS accreditation ending May 11, 2024, and Paul Smith's College's AAS ending May 31, 2021 — neither is on the current list.
For people aiming at technician work first, BLS lists a high school diploma or equivalent as the typical entry-level education for surveying and mapping technicians, and notes that some surveyors start as technicians and become licensed after many years under a licensed surveyor.
BLS also notes that some employers hire surveyor candidates with an associate degree plus additional training.
One licensure caution: the NCEES Model Law contains no associate-degree route to professional surveyor licensure.
Two-year-degree routes exist only where an individual state's law provides them, so read your board's rule before you count on one.
Surveying schools by state
Twenty-nine of the 32 accredited programs sit in the 50 states and three are in Puerto Rico, as ABET counted them in October 2026.
The table gathers every program by state, with school names as ABET lists them.
| State | Accredited programs (school — degree) |
|---|---|
| Alaska | University of Alaska Anchorage — Geomatics, BS |
| Alabama | Troy University — Surveying & Geomatics Sciences, BS |
| California | California State Polytechnic University, Pomona — Geospatial Engineering option in Civil Engineering, BS · California State University, Fresno — Geomatics Engineering, BS |
| Florida | Florida Atlantic University — Geomatics Engineering, B.S.G.E. · University of Florida — Geomatics, BS |
| Idaho | Idaho State University — Surveying and Geomatics Engineering Technology, BS |
| Louisiana | Nicholls State University — Geomatics, BS |
| Maine | University of Maine — Surveying Engineering Technology, BS |
| Michigan | Ferris State University — Surveying Engineering, BS · Michigan Technological University — Geospatial Engineering, BS |
| North Carolina | North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University — Geomatics, BS |
| New Jersey | New Jersey Institute of Technology — Surveying Engineering Technology, BS |
| New Mexico | New Mexico State University — Geomatics, BS |
| New York | Alfred State College — Surveying Engineering Technology, AAS · SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry — Land Surveying Technology, AAS · SUNY College of Technology at Alfred — Surveying and Geomatics Engineering Technology, BS |
| Ohio | Cincinnati State Technical and Community College — Land Surveying, BAS, and Surveying and Mapping, AAS (the AAS listed by ABET as Cincinnati Technical College) · The University of Akron — Surveying and Mapping, B.S., and Land Surveying, A.A.S. |
| Oregon | Oregon Institute of Technology — Geomatics - option in Surveying, BS |
| Pennsylvania | The Pennsylvania State University — Surveying Engineering, BS, and Surveying Engineering Technology, associate (Wilkes-Barre) |
| Puerto Rico | Polytechnic University of Puerto Rico — Land Surveying and Mapping, BS · University of Puerto Rico - Mayaguez Campus — Surveying and Topography, BS · University of Puerto Rico at Bayamon — Construction, Surveying and Roads Engineering Technology, associate |
| Tennessee | East Tennessee State University — Surveying and Mapping Science, BS |
| Texas | Texas A&M University - Corpus Christi — Geospatial Science, BS · Tyler Junior College — Surveying and Geomatics, AAS |
| Utah | Utah Valley University — Surveying and Mapping, B.S. |
| West Virginia | Fairmont State University — Surveying and Geomatics Engineering Technology, BS |
No program in your state?
The online options below are one path, and starting on a crew as a technician — then working toward licensure under your state's own route — is another.
BLS notes that entry-level surveyors often work several years under a licensed surveyor before qualifying for a license, and that this training may take the form of an internship or apprenticeship.
Which programs are ABET accredited?
Every program in the list this page is built from — all 32, with NSPS (the National Society of Professional Surveyors) as lead society — carries one of ABET's three commissions.
The commissions matter for licensure.
Under the NCEES Model Law, a bachelor's degree in surveying accredited by any of the three — EAC, ETAC or ANSAC — qualifies as surveying education, and the Model Law is NCEES's template, with each board adopting its own version of it.
The model also accepts routes with nothing to do with ABET: a bachelor's degree in any field that includes 30 or more semester hours of core surveying topics, and a non-accredited surveying degree that meets the NCEES Surveying Education Standard.
Standalone surveying courses count only inside a qualifying bachelor's with those 30-plus semester hours — and the Model Law does not list which courses are “core”, so that call belongs to each state board.
The list also shows why its date matters.
ABET's database records Kennesaw State University's Surveying and Mapping BS with ANSAC accreditation that ended August 1, 2022, and St. Cloud State's program ending September 30, 2018.
Those losses sit alongside the associate-degree ones above — don't take a program's own marketing page as proof of accreditation, and treat the database as current only to the day you search it.
Which programs can you take online?
ABET flags distance delivery on each program row, and the flags matter if you plan to keep working while you study.
One accredited bachelor's is flagged as fully distance-delivered: the University of Maine's Surveying Engineering Technology BS — the only US surveying program in the list with that flag.
ABET flags half-or-more online delivery for Idaho State's BS, North Carolina A&T's Geomatics BS, New Mexico State's Geomatics BS (which the list pairs with a Global Campus online site), and Cincinnati State's applied-science bachelor's and its AAS.
The same flag covers Polytechnic University of Puerto Rico's BS and East Tennessee State's BS.
East Tennessee State shows what the flag means in practice.
Its Surveying and Mapping BS lists 128 total credits and is delivered mostly online: nearly all coursework can be done online except Physics, and lab classes require fieldwork.
ETSU says online students can arrange to complete lab assignments with a Professional Licensed Surveyor, and it runs three summer project classes that are exclusively labs.
ETSU also offers a 36-credit online Surveying & Mapping certificate for people who already hold a bachelor's degree, with a fieldwork requirement.
On the graduate side, the University of Maine lists four fully online surveying options on its page.
They are a 12-credit Graduate Certificate in Surveying Engineering, a 30-credit non-thesis MS in Engineering Technology with a surveying concentration, a 30-credit PSM, and a 42-credit Doctorate of Engineering.
Under the Model Law's own arithmetic, graduate degrees buy back field years: a master's in surveying acceptable to the board cuts the experience requirement to 3 years.
An earned doctoral degree in surveying acceptable to the board plus a passed FS exam cuts it to 2.
Shorter credentials sit at the certificate level.
The University of Florida's 15-credit Geomatics certificate is aimed at people working in geomatics who hold a bachelor's degree in another major, and Oregon Tech lists an 18-credit online GIS certificate it says can be completed in as little as 9 months.
Delivery varies on campus too: Ferris State says its Surveying Engineering BS classes are held on campus, online or in mixed delivery at Big Rapids.
How do you choose a surveying school?
Start with the rule that actually governs: your state's.
BLS states that all 50 states and the District of Columbia require surveyors to be licensed before providing services to the public, and each board defines the education it accepts toward that license.
The NCEES Model Law — NCEES's model statute, not a law itself — pairs a bachelor's-level education requirement with 4 years of progressive surveying experience.
States can depart from the model — some keep routes the model lacks — so your board's rule is the one that counts.
The model's surveyor-intern step needs a qualifying bachelor's — an accredited surveying degree, a related degree with 30-plus core semester hours, or the NCEES Surveying Education Standard — plus a passed FS exam.
- Read your state board's education rule before you shortlist schools — the board decides which degrees count.
- Check each program's ABET status in ABET's own search, on the day you look.
- Look past the title: accredited programs on the list carry names such as geomatics, geospatial science and surveying engineering, and your board decides which degrees count.
- Compare catalogs, not averages: Penn State's BS lists a 127–128-credit minimum, UF's Geomatics BS 120, ETSU's 128.
- If you will study online, arrange the fieldwork before you enroll.
- Ask how labs, instruments and software map to crew work, and how many faculty hold licenses.
Delivery matters as much as the name on the degree.
If you will keep working while you study, the online flags above decide more than a brochure does — and where a program requires fieldwork, plan it before you enroll; ETSU's online students, for one, arrange lab assignments with a Professional Licensed Surveyor.
Faculty practice is a fair question to ask any program.
Fresno State states that all of its Geomatics faculty are professionally licensed — one university's own statement, and a template for what to ask elsewhere.
From school, the path runs on through the exams and supervised experience to the license.
Our land surveyor career guide walks the full route.
Career information, not legal, tax or licensing advice — confirm education requirements with your state licensing board and a program's current accreditation status with ABET.
Education rules are state law