Computer Software & Applications is above average in terms of popularity with it being the #54 most popular associate degree program in the country. As a result, there are many college that offer the degree, making your choice of school a hard one.
College Factual looked at 3 colleges and universities when compiling its 2025 Best Computer Software & Applications Associate Degree Schools in the Plains States Region ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 126 associate degrees in computer software & applications during the 2022-2023 academic year.
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Choosing a Great Computer Software & Applications School for Your Associate Degree
The computer software 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
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.
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
In addition to the above, you should consider some of the following factors:
Major Focus - How many resources a school devotes to computer software & applications students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - How many other computer software & applications students want to attend this school to pursue a associate degree.
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 easy is it for computer software & applications to pay back their student loans after receiving their associate degree.
Accreditation - Whether a school is regionally accredited and/or accredited by a recognized computer software & applications related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for computer software & applications students working on their associate degree.
More Ways to Rank Computer Software & Applications Schools
Since the program you select can have a significant impact on your future, we've developed a number of rankings, including this Best Computer Software & Applications Associate Degree Schools in the Plains States Region list, to help you choose the best school for you.
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Learn the applied programming skills needed to fill in-demand tech roles when you earn your online AS in Computer Science at Southern New Hampshire University.
It's difficult to beat Minneapolis Community and Technical College if you want to pursue an associate degree in computer software & applications. Minneapolis Community and Technical College is a medium-sized public college located in the large city of Minneapolis.
After graduating, computer software associate recipients generally make about $38,262 in their early 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 computer software 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.
