If you plan on getting your associate degree in cosmetology, you won't be alone since the degree program is ranked #81 in the country in terms of popularity. As a result, there are many college that offer the degree, making your choice of school a hard one.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 2 schools in Washington to determine which ones were the best for cosmetology students pursuing a associate degree. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 101 associate degrees in cosmetology during the 2022-2023 academic year.
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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
In addition to the above, you should consider some of the following factors:
Major Focus - How much a school focuses on cosmetology students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - How many other cosmetology students want to attend this school to pursue a associate degree.
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.
Student Debt - How easy is it for cosmetology to pay back their student loans after receiving their associate degree.
Accreditation - Whether a school is regionally accredited and/or accredited by a recognized cosmetology related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for cosmetology 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 Cosmetology Associate Degree Schools in Washington list, to help you choose the best school for you.
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Clover Park Technical College is one of the best schools in the country for getting an associate degree in cosmetology. CPTC is a small public college located in the small city of Lakewood.
After graduation, cosmetology associate recipients usually earn around $19,389 in their early careers.
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).
