an associate degree in general education is more popular than many other degrees. In fact, it ranks #55 out of 328 on popularity of all such degrees in the nation. This means you won't have too much trouble finding schools that offer the degree.
In 2025, College Factual analyzed 3 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best General Education Associate Degree Schools in New Jersey ranking. Combined, these schools handed out 209 associate degrees in general education to qualified students.
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Choosing a Great General Education School for Your Associate Degree
The education associate degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. Important measures of a quality education program can vary widely even among the top schools. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
Quality Overall Is Important
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 collection of different factors like degree completion, educational resources, student body caliber and post-graduation earnings for the school as a whole.
Average Earnings
One measure we use to determine the quality of a school is to look at the average salary of associate graduates during the early years of their career. This is because one of the main reasons people pursue their associate degree is to enable themselves to find better-paying positions.
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 education students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - How many other general education 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 general education 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 general education related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for general education students working on their associate degree.
The education 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 General Education Associate Degree Schools in New Jersey.
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It is difficult to beat Middlesex County College if you want to pursue an associate degree in general education. Middlesex County College is a large public college located in the large suburb of Edison.
Associate graduates who receive their degree from the education program make around $16,846 in the first couple years of their career.
Brookdale Community College is a great choice for individuals interested in an associate degree in general education. Brookdale Community College is a medium-sized public college located in the large suburb of Lincroft.
After graduation, education associate recipients generally earn around $19,157 in the first five years of their career.
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 education associate degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. Important measures of a quality education program can vary widely even among the top schools. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
