an associate degree in general engineering technology is more popular than many other degrees. In fact, it ranks #74 out of 328 on popularity of all such degrees in the nation. As a result, there are many college that offer the degree, making your choice of school a hard one.
In 2025, College Factual analyzed 6 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best General Engineering Technology Associate Degree Schools in the Southeast Region ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 568 associate degrees in general engineering technology during the 2022-2023 academic year.
DEBUG: Checking offer "Science & Engineering Bachelors Programs (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "Science & Engineering Bachelors Programs (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Science & Engineering Diploma Programs (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "Science & Engineering Diploma Programs (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: relevant_offers count = 0
DEBUG: No relevant offers, showing generic ESYOH widget
Choosing a Great General Engineering Technology School for Your Associate Degree
Your choice of general engineering technology 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. 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 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.
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 much a school focuses on general engineering technology students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - How many other general engineering technology students want to attend this school to pursue a associate degree.
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 easy is it for general engineering technology to pay back their student loans after receiving their associate degree.
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.
More Ways to Rank General Engineering Technology Schools
The engineering tech 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 Engineering Technology Associate Degree Schools in the Southeast Region.
DEBUG: Raw major_slug = "engineering-technologies//general-engineering-technology"
Chattanooga State Community College is one of the finest schools in the country for getting an associate degree in general engineering technology. Chattanooga State Community College is a medium-sized public college located in the midsize city of Chattanooga.
Those general engineering technology students who get their associate degree from Chattanooga State Community College earn $2,797 more than the average engineering tech graduate.
Every student who is interested in an associate degree in general engineering technology needs to look into Jefferson State Community College. Jeff State is a medium-sized public college located in the medium-sized city of Birmingham.
After graduating, engineering tech associate recipients typically earn about $38,981 at the beginning of their 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).