an associate degree in data processing is more popular than many other degrees. In fact, it ranks #99 out of 328 on popularity of all such degrees in the nation. So, you have a fair amount of options to choose from when looking for a school.
College Factual reviewed 7 schools in South Carolina to determine which ones were the best for associate degree seekers in the field of data processing. Combined, these schools handed out 258 associate degrees in data processing to qualified students.
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Choosing a Great Data Processing School for Your Associate Degree
Your choice of data processing for getting your associate degree school matters. 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 data processing students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - The number of data processing 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 data processing 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 data processing related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for data processing students working on their associate degree.
When choosing the right school for you, it's important to arm yourself with all the facts you can. To that end, we've created a number of major-specific rankings, including this Best Data Processing Associate Degree Schools in South Carolina list to help you make the college decision.
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Greenville Technical College is one of the best schools in the country for getting an associate degree in data processing. GTC is a fairly large public college located in the small city of Greenville.
Those data processing students who get their associate degree from Greenville Technical College make $2,738 more than the typical data processing student.
Horry-Georgetown Technical College is one of the best schools in the United States for getting an associate degree in data processing. Horry-Georgetown Technical College is a medium-sized public college located in the small city of Conway.
Associate recipients from the data processing program at Horry-Georgetown Technical College make $2,501 more than the standard college grad in this field shortly after graduation.
Every student pursuing a degree in an associate degree in data processing has to take a look at Midlands Technical College. Located in the large suburb of West Columbia, MTC is a public college with a moderately-sized student population.
Associate recipients from the data processing program at Midlands Technical College earn $3,688 above the typical college grad with the same degree shortly after graduation.
It's difficult to beat York Technical College if you want to pursue an associate degree in data processing. York Technical College is a small public college located in the city of Rock Hill.
Associate graduates who receive their degree from the data processing program make around $25,617 in the first couple years of their career.
Spartanburg Community College is a moderately-sized public college located in the suburb of Spartanburg.
Those data processing students who get their associate degree from Spartanburg Community College make $3,378 more than the average data processing 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).