Human Development & Family Studies is of the hottest associate degree programs in the United States, coming in as the #17 most popular major in the country. This makes choosing the right school a hard decision.
College Factual reviewed 5 schools in the Southwest Region to determine which ones were the best for associate degree seekers in the field of human development & family studies. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 672 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
The human development associate degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. Important measures of a quality human development 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
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.
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
In addition to the above, you should consider some of the following factors:
Major Focus - How many resources a school devotes to human development & family studies students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - How many other human development & family studies 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 human development & family studies 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 human development & family studies related body.
Our full 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.
Since picking the right college can be one of the most important decisions of your life, we've developed the Best Human Development & Family Studies Associate Degree Schools in the Southwest Region ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.
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It's hard to beat Tulsa Community College if you want to pursue an associate degree in human development & family studies. Tulsa Community College is a fairly large public college located in the large city of Tulsa.
Those human development & family studies students who get their associate degree from Tulsa Community College receive $4,740 more than the standard human development graduate.
Central New Mexico Community College is a good choice for individuals interested in an associate degree in human development & family studies. Located in the city of Albuquerque, CNM is a public college with a large student population.
Those human development & family studies students who get their associate degree from Central New Mexico Community College earn $2,893 more than the average human development graduate.
Oklahoma State University - Oklahoma City is a good option for individuals pursuing an associate degree in human development & family studies. OSU-OKC is a small public university located in the large city of Oklahoma City.
Those human development & family studies students who get their associate degree from Oklahoma State University - Oklahoma City make $4,604 more than the typical human development graduate.
South Texas College is one of the best schools in the country for getting an associate degree in human development & family studies. South Texas College is a fairly large public college located in the city of McAllen.
Soon after graduation, human development associate recipients usually earn an average of $19,971 in the first five years of their career.
One of 8 majors within the Family, Consumer & Human Sciences area of study, Human Development & Family Studies has other similar majors worth exploring.
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).