If you pursue a associate degree in accounting, you won't be alone. The field of study is the #13 most popular program in the country. So, there are lots of possibilities to explore when you're trying to determine where you want to get your degree.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 10 schools in Texas to determine which ones were the best for accounting students pursuing a associate degree. Combined, these schools handed out 480 associate degrees in accounting to qualified students.
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Choosing a Great Accounting School for Your Associate Degree
The accounting associate degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. This section explores some of the factors we include in our ranking and how much they vary depending on the school you select. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
Overall Quality Is a Must
The overall quality of a associate degree school is important to ensure a good education, not just how well they do in a particular major. To make it into this list a school must rank well in our overall Best Colleges ranking. This ranking considered factors such as graduation rates, overall graduate earnings and other educational resources to identify great colleges and universities.
Average Early-Career Salaries
To determine the overall quality of a graduate school, one factor we look at is the average early-career salary of those receiving their associate degree from the school. After all, your associate degree won't mean much if it doesn't help you find a job that will help you earn a living.
Other Factors We Consider
In addition to the above, you should consider some of the following factors:
Major Focus - How many resources a school devotes to accounting students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - The number of accounting students who choose to seek a associate degree at the school.
Educational Resources - The amount of money and other resources allocated to students while they are pursuing their degree. These resources include such things as number of students per instructor and education expenditures per student.
Student Debt - How much debt accounting students go into to obtain their associate degree and how well they are able to pay back that debt.
Accreditation - Whether a school is regionally accredited and/or accredited by a recognized accounting related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for accounting students working on their associate degree.
The accounting school you choose to invest your time and money in matters. To help you make the decision that is right for you, we've developed a number of major-specific rankings, including this list of the Best Accounting Associate Degree Schools in Texas.
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Any student pursuing a degree in an associate degree in accounting has to check out Austin Community College District. Austin Community College District is a fairly large public college located in the large city of Austin.
Accounting associate degree recipients from Austin Community College District receive an earnings boost of about $20,509 above the typical income of accounting graduates.
It's hard to beat El Centro College if you wish to pursue an associate degree in accounting. El Centro College is a fairly large public college located in the large city of Dallas.
After graduating, accounting associate recipients usually make around $37,031 in the first five years of their career.
Any student who is interested in an associate degree in accounting needs to check out Houston Community College. Located in the large city of Houston, Houston Community College is a public college with a fairly large student population.
Soon after graduation, accounting associate recipients usually make an average of $34,447 at the beginning of their careers.
The bars on the spread charts above show the distribution of the schools on this list +/- one standard deviation from the mean.
The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), a branch of the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) serves as the core of the rest of our data about colleges.
Some other college data, including much of the graduate earnings data, comes from the U.S. Department of Education’s (College Scorecard).
The accounting associate degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. This section explores some of the factors we include in our ranking and how much they vary depending on the school you select. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
