If you pursue a associate degree in culinary arts, you won't be alone. The field of study is the #23 most popular program in the country. So, there are lots of possibilities to explore when you're trying to determine where you want to get your degree.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 2 schools in Missouri to determine which ones were the best for culinary arts students pursuing a associate degree. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 94 associate degrees in culinary arts during the 2022-2023 academic year.
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Average Early-Career Salaries
To determine the overall quality of a graduate school, one factor we look at is the average early-career salary of those receiving their associate degree from the school. After all, your associate degree won't mean much if it doesn't help you find a job that will help you earn a living.
Other Factors We Consider
In addition to the above, you should consider some of the following factors:
Major Focus - How many resources a school devotes to culinary arts students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - The number of culinary arts students who choose to seek a associate degree at the school.
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 much debt culinary arts 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 culinary arts related body.
Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for culinary arts 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 Culinary Arts Associate Degree Schools in Missouri list, to help you choose the best school for you.
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It is difficult to beat Saint Louis Community College if you wish to pursue an associate degree in culinary arts. Saint Louis Community College is a fairly large public college located in the suburb of Bridgeton.
Students who graduate with their associate from the culinary arts program report average early career income of $26,318.
Ozarks Technical Community College is a wonderful option for students interested in an associate degree in culinary arts. OTC is a fairly large public college located in the medium-sized city of Springfield.
Soon after graduation, culinary arts associate recipients typically make an average of $25,879 at the beginning of their 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).
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