One profession that has not gone out of style during the economic recession in the past few years is fashion merchandising. This has led to a huge growth in the enrollment of fashion merchandising colleges. No matter how poor, people will always be wearing clothes and there will always be a demand for high quality garments.

This demand for high quality and fashionable clothing is leading to exponential growth in the enrollment in college and the number of fashion merchandising colleges themselves. Like lawyers or doctors, being a fashion merchandiser requires a lot of learned skill. Although fashion merchandising colleges are not extremely lengthy programs, they still offer specialized training that students need to find a job when they graduate.

Many students choose to attend fashion merchandising colleges because of the unusually high fashion merchandising salary that comes with it. While it may not be an immediate path to six figures, fashion merchandising is a well paid profession and career. Fashion merchandising colleges can help students get a job with great pay and benefits, which makes it no wonder that enrollment has grown so rapidly.

Fashion merchandising colleges usually teach students how to buy, promote, and sell fashion items. The nature of fashion merchandising makes the college experience somewhat mixed between liberal arts and business. While fashion merchandising colleges focus heavily on the design sense, typically a more artistic pursuit, they also dedicate time to business and marketing acumen.

If you are in search for the best fashion merchandising colleges, there are a number of them located in every area of the United States. Some of them are more expensive due to private school tuition, but many are located as part of public school systems. Some fashion merchandising colleges are totally separate from institutions altogether, but these schools are akin to their computer science counterparts like “DeVry” or similar professional schools.

Here are a couple of the best fashion merchandising colleges and why they are so great:

Univeristy of the Incarnate Word – the University of the Incarnate Word is located in San Antonio, Texas and is one of the preeminent fashion merchandising colleges in the United States. This stems mostly from the fact that the school boasts a great art history and fashion department with many professors with field experience. Although the school is not located in one of the main hubs for fashion design (like New York or Los Angeles), it still offers a great education that can land students at great fashion merchandising jobs after graduation.

Parsons School of Design – the Parsons School of Design is one of the best fashion merchandising colleges in the world due to the location of New York City and the focus of the school itself. Students who attend the Parsons School of Design already have a deep interest in fashion merchandising and are dedicated to paying private school tuition for a top notch education. Although the school is by no means cheap, this fashion merchandising college is more than worth the money.