Ranked #14 in popularity, vehicle maintenance & repair 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 5 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Vehicle Maintenance & Repair Associate Degree Schools in Illinois ranking. Combined, these schools handed out 475 associate degrees in vehicle maintenance & repair to qualified students.
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Choosing a Great Vehicle Maintenance & Repair School for Your Associate Degree
The vehicle repair 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 vehicle maintenance & repair students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - The number of vehicle maintenance & repair 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 vehicle maintenance & repair 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 vehicle maintenance & repair related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for vehicle maintenance & repair students working on their associate degree.
More Ways to Rank Vehicle Maintenance & Repair Schools
The vehicle repair school you choose to invest your time and money in matters. To help you make the decision that is right for you, we've developed a number of major-specific rankings, including this list of the Best Vehicle Maintenance & Repair Associate Degree Schools in Illinois.
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Parkland College is one of the best schools in the United States for getting an associate degree in vehicle maintenance & repair. Parkland College is a medium-sized public college located in the small city of Champaign.
Those vehicle maintenance & repair students who get their associate degree from Parkland College receive $2,325 more than the standard vehicle repair student.
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).