General Engineering Technology is above average in terms of popularity with it being the #74 most popular associate degree program in the country. This means you won't have too much trouble finding schools that offer the degree.
In 2025, College Factual analyzed 5 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best General Engineering Technology Associate Degree Schools in the Great Lakes Region ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 142 associate degrees in general engineering technology during the 2022-2023 academic year.
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Choosing a Great General Engineering Technology School for Your Associate Degree
The engineering tech associate degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. Important measures of a quality engineering tech 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 account for this we consider a school'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.
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 many resources a school devotes to general engineering technology students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - The number of general engineering technology students who choose to seek a associate degree at the school.
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 engineering technology 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 engineering technology related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for general engineering technology students working on their associate degree.
Since the program you select can have a significant impact on your future, we've developed a number of rankings, including this Best General Engineering Technology Associate Degree Schools in the Great Lakes Region list, to help you choose the best school for you.
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Northwestern Michigan College is one of the best schools in the United States for getting an associate degree in general engineering technology. NMC is a small public college located in the small city of Traverse City.
Those general engineering technology students who get their associate degree from Northwestern Michigan College make $4,824 more than the standard engineering tech student.
Kalamazoo Valley Community College is one of the best schools in the United States for getting an associate degree in general engineering technology. Kalamazoo Valley Community College is a medium-sized public college located in the midsize suburb of Kalamazoo.
Students who graduate with their associate from the engineering tech program state that they receive average early career earnings of $46,493.
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 engineering tech associate degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. Important measures of a quality engineering tech program can vary widely even among the top schools. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
