Ranked #12 in popularity, general social sciences is one of the most sought-after associate degree programs in the nation. This makes choosing the right school a hard decision.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 14 schools in the Far Western US Region to determine which ones were the best for general social sciences students pursuing a associate degree. Combined, these schools handed out 7,516 associate degrees in general social sciences to qualified students.
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Choosing a Great General Social Sciences School for Your Associate Degree
The social sciences associate degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. Important measures of a quality social sciences 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
The overall quality of a associate degree school is important to ensure a good education, not just how well they do in a particular major. To make it into this list a school must rank well in our overall Best Colleges ranking. This ranking considered factors such as graduation rates, overall graduate earnings and other educational resources to identify great colleges and universities.
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
In addition to the above, you should consider some of the following factors:
Major Focus - How many resources a school devotes to general social sciences students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - The number of general social sciences 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 general social sciences 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 social sciences related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for general social sciences 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 General Social Sciences Associate Degree Schools in the Far Western US Region list to help you make the college decision.
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It is hard to beat Merced College if you wish to pursue an associate degree in general social sciences. Located in the small city of Merced, Merced Community College District is a public college with a fairly large student population.
General Social Sciences associate degree recipients from Merced College earn a boost of about $8,136 above the typical income of general social sciences graduates.
Every student who is interested in an associate degree in general social sciences has to take a look at Ohlone College. Located in the midsize city of Fremont, Ohlone College is a public college with a medium-sized student population.
Associate graduates who receive their degree from the social sciences program make about $22,545 in the first couple years of working.
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).
The social sciences associate degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. Important measures of a quality social sciences program can vary widely even among the top schools. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
