General Psychology is of the hottest associate degree programs in the United States, coming in as the #8 most popular major in the country. This means there are lots of options to choose from when you decide to get your degree.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 19 schools in the Far Western US Region to determine which ones were the best for general psychology students pursuing a associate degree. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 12,288 associate degrees in general psychology during the 2022-2023 academic year.
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Choosing a Great General Psychology School for Your Associate Degree
Your choice of general psychology for getting your associate degree school matters. Important measures of a quality psychology 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 combination 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 general psychology students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - How many other general psychology 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 much debt general psychology 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 general psychology related body.
Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for general psychology students working on their associate degree.
The psychology 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 General Psychology Associate Degree Schools in the Far Western US Region.
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It is difficult to beat Merced College if you want to pursue an associate degree in general psychology. Merced Community College District is a fairly large public college located in the small city of Merced.
General Psychology associate degree recipients from Merced College receive an earnings boost of about $9,954 over the average earnings of general psychology majors.
Every student who is interested in an associate degree in general psychology has to take a look at Modesto Junior College. Located in the midsize city of Modesto, MJC is a public college with a fairly large student population.
Soon after graduating, psychology associate recipients typically make about $25,832 in the first five years of their career.
Pasadena City College is one of the finest schools in the United States for getting an associate degree in general psychology. Located in the city of Pasadena, Pasadena City College is a public college with a fairly large student population.
Students who graduate with their associate from the psychology program state that they receive average early career earnings of $24,894.
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).
Your choice of general psychology for getting your associate degree school matters. Important measures of a quality psychology program can vary widely even among the top schools. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.
