Construction Trades isn't the most popular associate program in the world, but it's not the least popular either. To be more precise it ranks #22 in popularity out of 38 majors in the country. So, it might take a little more work to find colleges and universities that offer the degree program.
College Factual reviewed 5 schools in California to determine which ones were the best for associate degree seekers in the field of construction trades. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 526 associate degrees in construction trades during the 2022-2023 academic year.
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Choosing a Great Construction Trades School for Your Associate Degree
The construction trades associate degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. Important measures of a quality construction trades 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
A school that excels in educating for a particular major and degree level must be a great school overall as well. To take this into account 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 construction trades students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - How many other construction trades 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 much debt construction trades 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 construction trades related body.
Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for construction trades students working on their associate degree.
The construction trades 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 Construction Trades Associate Degree Schools in California.
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.
The construction trades associate degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. Important measures of a quality construction trades program can vary widely even among the top schools. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.
