Ranked #1 in popularity, liberal arts / sciences & humanities 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.
In 2025, College Factual analyzed 266 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Liberal Arts / Sciences & Humanities Associate Degree Schools in the Southeast Region ranking. Combined, these schools handed out 115,509 associate degrees in liberal arts / sciences & humanities to qualified students.
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Choosing a Great Liberal Arts / Sciences & Humanities School for Your Associate Degree
Your choice of liberal arts / sciences & humanities for getting your associate degree school matters. Important measures of a quality liberal arts / sciences & humanities 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 collection 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 many resources a school devotes to liberal arts / sciences & humanities students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - How many other liberal arts / sciences & humanities 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 easy is it for liberal arts / sciences & humanities to pay back their student loans after receiving their associate degree.
Accreditation - Whether a school is regionally accredited and/or accredited by a recognized liberal arts / sciences & humanities related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for liberal arts / sciences & humanities students working on their associate degree.
More Ways to Rank Liberal Arts / Sciences & Humanities Schools
Since picking the right college can be one of the most important decisions of your life, we've developed the Best Liberal Arts / Sciences & Humanities Associate Degree Schools in the Southeast Region ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.
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Best Schools for Associate Students to Study Liberal Arts / Sciences & Humanities in the Southeast Region
Below you'll see a list of the best colleges and universities for pursuing an associate degree in liberal arts / sciences & humanities. Only those schools that rank in the top 20% of all the schools we analyze get awarded with a place on this list.
25 Top Southeast Region Schools for an Associate in Liberal Arts / Sciences & Humanities
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Additional Award Winners
This list shows the rest of the schools awarded a Best Liberal Arts / Sciences & Humanities Associate Degree Schools in the Southeast Region badge.
Showing in this list means the college was ranked in the top 20% of the 266 different Southeast liberal arts / sciences & humanities schools we analyzed.
These are some additional schools worth mentioning that are also great but just didn't quite make the cut to earn our top Best Liberal Arts / Sciences & Humanities Associate Degree Schools in the Southeast Region award.
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).