Ranked #6 in popularity, biological & physical science is one of the most sought-after associate degree programs in the nation. This makes choosing the right school a hard decision.
College Factual looked at 8 colleges and universities when compiling its 2025 Best Biological & Physical Science Associate Degree Schools in the Southeast Region ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 935 associate degrees in biological & physical science during the 2022-2023 academic year.
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Choosing a Great Biological & Physical Science School for Your Associate Degree
The biological science associate degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. Important measures of a quality biological science program can vary widely even among the top schools. 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 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 biological & physical science students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - The number of biological & physical science 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 biological & physical science 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 biological & physical science related body.
Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for biological & physical science students working on their associate degree.
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 Biological & Physical Science Associate Degree Schools in the Southeast Region list to help you make the college decision.
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Any student pursuing a degree in an associate degree in biological & physical science needs to take a look at Northern Virginia Community College. Northern Virginia Community College is a fairly large public college located in the suburb of Annandale.
After graduation, biological science associate recipients usually make an average of $21,923 in the first five years of their career.
Any student who is interested in an associate degree in biological & physical science needs to look into Lord Fairfax Community College. Lord Fairfax Community College is a medium-sized public college located in the rural area of Middletown.
Biological & Physical Science associate degree recipients from Lord Fairfax Community College receive an earnings boost of approximately $10,068 over the average earnings of biological & physical science majors.
Every student pursuing a degree in an associate degree in biological & physical science needs to look into Tidewater Community College. Located in the city of Norfolk, Tidewater Community College is a public college with a large student population.
Associate recipients from the biological & physical science degree program at Tidewater Community College make $2,823 above the standard college grad in this field shortly after graduation.
Every student pursuing a degree in an associate degree in biological & physical science has to look into Reynolds Community College. Reynolds Community College is a medium-sized public college located in the suburb of Richmond.
Students who graduate with their associate from the biological science program state that they receive average early career earnings of $23,059.
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.
The biological science associate degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. Important measures of a quality biological science program can vary widely even among the top schools. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
