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.
In 2025, College Factual analyzed 8 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best General Engineering Associate Degree Schools in the Southeast Region ranking. Combined, these schools handed out 1,036 associate degrees in general engineering to qualified students.
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Choosing a Great General Engineering School for Your Associate Degree
Your choice of general engineering for getting your associate degree school matters. Important measures of a quality engineering 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 account for this we include a college's overall Best Colleges ranking which itself looks at a combination of different 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 many resources a school devotes to general engineering students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - The number of general engineering 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 easy is it for general engineering 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 related body.
Our complete 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 Southeast Region ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.
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Northern Virginia Community College is one of the best schools in the country for getting an associate degree in general engineering. Northern Virginia Community College is a fairly large public college located in the suburb of Annandale.
Students who graduate with their associate from the engineering program state that they receive average early career income of $16,790.
Tidewater Community College is one of the best schools in the United States for getting an associate degree in general engineering. Located in the city of Norfolk, Tidewater Community College is a public college with a fairly large student population.
Those general engineering students who get their associate degree from Tidewater Community College earn $25,883 more than the typical engineering graduate.
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).
Your choice of general engineering for getting your associate degree school matters. Important measures of a quality engineering program can vary widely even among the top schools. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.
