If you plan on getting your associate degree in information science, you won't be alone since the degree program is ranked #90 in the country in terms of popularity. As a result, there are many college that offer the degree, making your choice of school a hard one.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 4 schools in the Great Lakes Region to determine which ones were the best for information science students pursuing a associate degree. Combined, these schools handed out 441 associate degrees in information science to qualified students.
Gain the specialized knowledge and critical-thinking skills required to begin a career in tech with this online associate degree from Southern New Hampshire University.
Choosing a Great Information Science School for Your Associate Degree
The is associate degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. Important measures of a quality is program can vary widely even among the top schools. 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 quality 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 information science students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - The number of information science 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 information science 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 information science related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for information science students working on their associate degree.
The is 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 Information Science Associate Degree Schools in the Great Lakes Region.
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Gain the specialized knowledge and critical-thinking skills required to begin a career in tech with this online associate degree from Southern New Hampshire University.
It is hard to beat Ivy Tech Community College if you wish to pursue an associate degree in information science. Located in the large city of Indianapolis, Ivy Tech Community College is a public college with a fairly large student population.
Associate recipients from the information science program at Ivy Tech Community College get $14,136 above the standard graduate in this field shortly after graduation.
Any student who is interested in an associate degree in information science has to look into Cuyahoga Community College District. Cuyahoga Community College District is a large public college located in the large city of Cleveland.
Associate recipients from the information science program at Cuyahoga Community College District make $4,725 above the average college grad in this field when they enter the workforce.
It is difficult to beat Zane State College if you want to pursue an associate degree in information science. Zane State College is a small public college located in the town of Zanesville.
Associate students who receive their degree from the is program make an average of $29,311 in their early career salary.
Any student pursuing a degree in an associate degree in information science has to take a look at University of Cincinnati - Blue Ash College. Located in the large suburb of Blue Ash, UC Blue Ash College is a public university with a medium-sized student population.
After graduating, is associate recipients typically make around $37,961 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).