Ranked #17 in popularity, human development & family studies 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.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 4 schools in Kentucky to determine which ones were the best for human development & family studies students pursuing a associate degree. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 109 associate degrees in human development & family studies during the 2022-2023 academic year.
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Choosing a Great Human Development & Family Studies School for Your Associate Degree
Your choice of human development & family studies 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
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 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.
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 much a school focuses on human development & family studies students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - The number of human development & family studies 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 human development & family studies to pay back their student loans after receiving their associate degree.
Accreditation - Whether a school is regionally accredited and/or accredited by a recognized human development & family studies related body.
Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for human development & family studies students working on their associate degree.
More Ways to Rank Human Development & Family Studies Schools
Since the program you select can have a significant impact on your future, we've developed a number of rankings, including this Best Human Development & Family Studies Associate Degree Schools in Kentucky list, to help you choose the best school for you.
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It is difficult to beat West Kentucky Community and Technical College if you wish to pursue an associate degree in human development & family studies. Located in the small city of Paducah, West Kentucky Community and Technical College is a public college with a medium-sized student population.
Associate students who receive their degree from the human development program make about $17,435 in the first couple years of their career.
It's hard to beat Somerset Community College if you wish to pursue an associate degree in human development & family studies. Located in the town of Somerset, SCC is a public college with a moderately-sized student population.
Students who graduate with their associate from the human development program state that they receive average early career wages of $14,888.
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 human development & family studies 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.
