Ranked #29 in popularity, general engineering is one of the most sought-after associate degree programs in the nation. This means there are lots of options to choose from when you decide to get your degree.
College Factual looked at 7 colleges and universities when compiling its 2025 Best General Engineering Associate Degree Schools in the Middle Atlantic Region ranking. Combined, these schools handed out 756 associate degrees in general engineering to qualified students.
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Choosing a Great General Engineering School for Your Associate Degree
The engineering associate degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. 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 students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - How many other general engineering 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 much debt general engineering 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 related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for general engineering students working on their associate degree.
Since picking the right college can be one of the most important decisions of your life, we've developed the Best General Engineering Associate Degree Schools in the Middle Atlantic Region ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.
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Union County College is a great choice for individuals pursuing an associate degree in general engineering. Located in the suburb of Cranford, Union County College is a public college with a medium-sized student population.
Students who graduate with their associate from the engineering program report average early career wages of $27,813.
Borough of Manhattan Community College is a great choice for individuals pursuing an associate degree in general engineering. BMCC is a large public college located in the city of New York.
After graduation, engineering associate recipients usually earn around $30,518 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 engineering associate degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. 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.
