Ranked #21 in popularity, dental support services 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 11 colleges and universities when compiling its 2025 Best Dental Support Services Associate Degree Schools in Illinois ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 279 associate degrees in dental support services during the 2022-2023 academic year.
DEBUG: Checking offer "Dental Assistant (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" with relevance 0.9
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "Dental Assistant (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" ACCEPTED (relevance 0.9)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Dental Assistant (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" with relevance 0.9
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "Dental Assistant (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" ACCEPTED (relevance 0.9)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Healthcare DA to Dental Hygienist Programs (I Am a Dental Assistant)" with relevance 0.8
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "Healthcare DA to Dental Hygienist Programs (I Am a Dental Assistant)" ACCEPTED (relevance 0.8)
DEBUG: relevant_offers count = 3
DEBUG: relevant_offers > 0, checking for ESYOH offers
DEBUG: ESYOH filtering - found 3 ESYOH offers with relevance >= 0.8
DEBUG: esyoh_offers count = 3
DEBUG: ESYOH offers found, rendering ESYOH widget
DEBUG: most_relevant_only = true, filtering for most relevant
DEBUG: Found 0 offers with relevance >= 1.0
DEBUG: Backfilling with 2 offers with relevance >= 0.9
Choosing a Great Dental Support Services School for Your Associate Degree
The dental support 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
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 college's overall Best Colleges ranking which itself looks at a host 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 dental support services students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - The number of dental support services 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 dental support services 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 dental support services related body.
Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for dental support services students working on their associate degree.
Since the program you select can have a significant impact on your future, we've developed a number of rankings, including this Best Dental Support Services Associate Degree Schools in Illinois list, to help you choose the best school for you.
DEBUG: Raw major_slug = "health-care-professions//dental-support-services"
College of Lake County is a great option for individuals interested in an associate degree in dental support services. Located in the suburb of Grayslake, College of Lake County is a public college with a large student population.
Those dental support services students who get their associate degree from College of Lake County receive $6,615 more than the typical dental support grad.
Lewis and Clark Community College is one of the finest schools in the United States for getting an associate degree in dental support services. Lewis and Clark Community College is a small public college located in the small suburb of Godfrey.
Associate students who receive their degree from the dental support program make about $54,276 for their early career.
Every student who is interested in an associate degree in dental support services needs to look into College of DuPage. Located in the large suburb of Glen Ellyn, COD is a public college with a very large student population.
Those dental support services students who get their associate degree from College of DuPage earn $2,750 more than the typical dental support grad.
Lake Land College is a small public college located in the rural area of Mattoon.
Dental Support Services associate degree recipients from Lake Land College earn a boost of approximately $2,388 over the average income of dental support services majors.
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.