If you plan on getting your associate degree in legal studies, you won't be alone since the degree program is ranked #264 in the country in terms of popularity. This means you won't have too much trouble finding schools that offer the degree.
In 2025, College Factual analyzed 2 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Legal Studies Associate Degree Schools ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 313 associate degrees in legal studies during the <nil> academic year.
DEBUG: Checking offer "Legal Services & Studies (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" with relevance 1
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "Legal Services & Studies (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" ACCEPTED (relevance 1)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Legal Studies (I Have a Bachelors)" with relevance 1
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "Legal Studies (I Have a Bachelors)" ACCEPTED (relevance 1)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Criminal Justice & Law Bachelors Programs (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" with relevance 0.7
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "Criminal Justice & Law Bachelors Programs (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" REJECTED (relevance 0.7)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Legal Services (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "Legal Services (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Paralegal (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" with relevance 0.5
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "Paralegal (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" REJECTED (relevance 0.5)
DEBUG: relevant_offers count = 2
DEBUG: relevant_offers > 0, checking for ESYOH offers
DEBUG: ESYOH filtering - found 2 ESYOH offers with relevance >= 0.8
DEBUG: esyoh_offers count = 2
DEBUG: ESYOH offers found, rendering ESYOH widget
DEBUG: most_relevant_only = true, filtering for most relevant
DEBUG: Found 2 offers with relevance >= 1.0
Other Factors We Consider
In addition to the above, you should consider some of the following factors:
Major Focus - How much a school focuses on legal studies students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - The number of legal studies students who choose to seek a associate degree at the school.
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.
Accreditation - Whether a school is regionally accredited and/or accredited by a recognized legal studies related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for legal studies 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 Legal Studies Associate Degree Schools list, to help you choose the best school for you.
DEBUG: Raw major_slug = "legal-studies-and-professions//general-legal-studies//legal-studies"
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).
by our College Data Analytics Team