If you pursue a associate degree in liberal arts general studies, you won't be alone. The field of study is the #1 most popular program in the country. This makes choosing the right school a hard decision.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 6 schools in Maine to determine which ones were the best for liberal arts general studies students pursuing a associate degree. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 322 associate degrees in liberal arts general studies during the 2022-2023 academic year.
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Choosing a Great Liberal Arts General Studies School for Your Associate Degree
Your choice of liberal arts general studies for getting your associate degree school matters. 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 take this into account we consider a college's overall Best Colleges ranking which itself looks at a combination of different 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 many resources a school devotes to liberal arts general studies students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - How many other liberal arts general studies students want to attend this school to pursue a associate degree.
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 liberal arts general 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 liberal arts general studies related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for liberal arts general studies students working on their associate degree.
More Ways to Rank Liberal Arts General Studies Schools
When choosing the right school for you, it's important to arm yourself with all the facts you can. To that end, we've created a number of major-specific rankings, including this Best Liberal Arts General Studies Associate Degree Schools in Maine list to help you make the college decision.
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Southern Maine Community College is a great decision for individuals interested in an associate degree in liberal arts general studies. SMCC is a moderately-sized public college located in the city of South Portland.
After graduation, liberal arts associate recipients generally earn around $27,742 in the first five years of their career.
It is hard to beat Central Maine Community College if you wish to pursue an associate degree in liberal arts general studies. Located in the small city of Auburn, Central Maine Technical College is a public college with a small student population.
After graduation, liberal arts associate recipients typically make about $31,646 in the first five years of their career.
It's hard to beat Kennebec Valley Community College if you wish to pursue an associate degree in liberal arts general studies. Kennebec Valley Community College is a small public college located in the remote town of Fairfield.
Associate students who receive their degree from the liberal arts program earn an average of $32,448 in the first couple years of working.
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.
Your choice of liberal arts general studies for getting your associate degree school matters. 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:
