Clinical/Medical Laboratory Science is above average in terms of popularity with it being the #40 most popular associate degree program in the country. As a result, there are many college that offer the degree, making your choice of school a hard one.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 16 schools in the Southwest Region to determine which ones were the best for clinical/medical laboratory science students pursuing a associate degree. Combined, these schools handed out 416 associate degrees in clinical/medical laboratory science to qualified students.
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Choosing a Great Clinical/Medical Laboratory Science School for Your Associate Degree
Your choice of clinical/medical laboratory science for getting your associate degree school matters. Important measures of a quality clinical laboratory science 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 take this into account we consider a school's overall Best Colleges ranking which itself looks at a host 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 much a school focuses on clinical/medical laboratory science students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - The number of clinical/medical laboratory science 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 much debt clinical/medical laboratory science 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 clinical/medical laboratory science related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for clinical/medical laboratory science students working on their associate degree.
The clinical laboratory science 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 Clinical/Medical Laboratory Science Associate Degree Schools in the Southwest Region.
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Take your associate degree in an allied health field to the next level with this specialized transfer friendly online bachelor of science from Southern New Hampshire University.
It's hard to beat Phoenix College if you want to pursue an associate degree in clinical/medical laboratory science. Phoenix College is a fairly large public college located in the large city of Phoenix.
Those clinical/medical laboratory science students who get their associate degree from Phoenix College make $12,715 more than the average clinical laboratory science student.
Tarleton State University is one of the finest schools in the United States for getting an associate degree in clinical/medical laboratory science. Located in the town of Stephenville, Tarleton is a public university with a large student population.
Those clinical/medical laboratory science students who get their associate degree from Tarleton State University earn $4,213 more than the standard clinical laboratory science grad.
It is hard to beat Houston Community College if you want to pursue an associate degree in clinical/medical laboratory science. Houston Community College is a fairly large public college located in the large city of Houston.
Associate graduates who receive their degree from the clinical laboratory science program make around $48,172 in the first couple years of their career.
Located in the city of Pasadena, San Jacinto College is a public college with a fairly large student population.
Associate recipients from the clinical/medical laboratory science program at San Jacinto Community College make $2,517 above the typical graduate with the same degree when they enter the workforce.
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 clinical/medical laboratory science for getting your associate degree school matters. Important measures of a quality clinical laboratory science program can vary widely even among the top schools. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.
