Dental Support Services is of the hottest associate degree programs in the United States, coming in as the #21 most popular major in the country. This makes choosing the right school a hard decision.
In 2025, College Factual analyzed 32 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Dental Support Services Associate Degree Schools in the Southwest Region ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 754 associate degrees in dental support services during the 2022-2023 academic year.
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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. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
Quality Overall Is Important
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 host of various factors like degree completion, educational resources, student body caliber and post-graduation earnings for the school as a whole.
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
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 schools for dental support services 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 Dental Support Services 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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Tyler Junior College is a great choice for students pursuing an associate degree in dental support services. Tyler Junior College is a large public college located in the medium-sized city of Tyler.
Students who graduate with their associate from the dental support program report average early career earnings of $53,557.
Pima Community College is a good decision for students interested in an associate degree in dental support services. Pima County Community College District is a large public college located in the large city of Tucson.
Those dental support services students who get their associate degree from Pima Community College make $4,915 more than the standard dental support graduate.
It's difficult to beat Phoenix College if you wish to pursue an associate degree in dental support services. Phoenix College is a fairly large public college located in the city of Phoenix.
Students who graduate with their associate from the dental support program report average early career wages of $32,248.
Located in the large city of Fort Worth, Tarrant County College is a public college with a very large student population.
Dental Support Services associate degree recipients from Tarrant County College District get an earnings boost of approximately $7,971 above the typical earnings of dental support services graduates.
Located in the rural area of Kingman, MCC is a public college with a small student population.
Associate recipients from the dental support services degree program at Mohave Community College earn $9,230 more than the typical college grad in this field when they enter the workforce.
Located in the large suburb of Midwest City, RSC is a public college with a medium-sized student population.
Those dental support services students who get their associate degree from Rose State College make $12,861 more than the standard dental support student.
Located in the city of Austin, Austin Community College District is a public college with a fairly large student population.
Dental Support Services associate degree recipients from Austin Community College District receive an earnings boost of about $2,909 above the typical 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.