General Business/Commerce is of the hottest associate degree programs in the United States, coming in as the #9 most popular major in the country. This means there are lots of options to choose from when you decide to get your degree.
In 2025, College Factual analyzed 24 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best General Business/Commerce Associate Degree Schools in the Great Lakes Region ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 1,700 associate degrees in general business/commerce during the 2022-2023 academic year.
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Choosing a Great General Business/Commerce School for Your Associate Degree
The general business 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. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.
A Great Overall School
A school that excels in educating for a particular major and degree level must be a great school overall as well. To account for this we consider a college's overall Best Colleges ranking which itself looks at a combination of various factors like degree completion, educational resources, student body caliber and post-graduation earnings for the school as a whole.
Early-Career Earnings
Average early-career salary of those graduating with their associate degree is one indicator we use in our analysis to find the schools that offer the highest-quality education. That is, everyone wants their associate degree to be worth something, and salaries are one measure of determining that.
Other Factors We Consider
The metrics below are just some of the other metrics that we use to determine our rankings.
Major Focus - How much a school focuses on general business/commerce students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - How many other general business/commerce students want to attend this school to pursue a associate degree.
Educational Resources - How many resources are allocated to students. These resources may include educational expenditures per student, number of students per instructor, and graduation rate among other things.
Student Debt - How easy is it for general business/commerce to pay back their student loans after receiving their associate degree.
Accreditation - Whether a school is regionally accredited and/or accredited by a recognized general business/commerce related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for general business/commerce students working on their associate degree.
Since picking the right college can be one of the most important decisions of your life, we've developed the Best General Business/Commerce Associate Degree Schools in the Great Lakes Region ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.
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Any student pursuing a degree in an associate degree in general business/commerce has to take a look at Indiana Wesleyan University - National & Global. IWU is a fairly large private not-for-profit university located in the rural area of Marion.
Associate recipients from the general business/commerce degree program at Indiana Wesleyan University - National & Global earn $9,507 more than the average college graduate in this field when they enter the workforce.
It's difficult to beat Davenport University if you wish to pursue an associate degree in general business/commerce. Davenport University is a small private not-for-profit university located in the large suburb of Grand Rapids.
General Business/Commerce associate degree recipients from Davenport University get an earnings boost of about $9,574 over the average income of general business/commerce majors.
It's hard to beat Macomb Community College if you want to pursue an associate degree in general business/commerce. Macomb Community College is a fairly large public college located in the medium-sized city of Warren.
Associate graduates who receive their degree from the general business program earn an average of $37,532 for their early career.
Purdue University Global is one of the finest schools in the country for getting an associate degree in general business/commerce. Purdue University Global is a very large public university located in the city of West Lafayette.
Associate students who receive their degree from the general business program make an average of $37,929 in the first couple years of their career.
Rhodes State College is a small public college located in the rural area of Lima.
Those general business/commerce students who get their associate degree from James A Rhodes State College make $5,282 more than the typical general business student.
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 general business 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. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.
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