If you pursue a associate degree in general social sciences, you won't be alone. The field of study is the #12 most popular program in the country. This means there are lots of options to choose from when you decide to get your degree.
College Factual looked at 14 colleges and universities when compiling its 2025 Best General Social Sciences Associate Degree Schools in California ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 7,511 associate degrees in general social sciences during the 2022-2023 academic year.
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Choosing a Great General Social Sciences School for Your Associate Degree
Your choice of general social sciences for getting your associate degree school matters. This section explores some of the factors we include in our ranking and how much they vary depending on the school you select. 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 include 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 much a school focuses on general social sciences students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - How many other general social sciences 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 easy is it for general social sciences to pay back their student loans after receiving their associate degree.
Accreditation - Whether a school is regionally accredited and/or accredited by a recognized general social sciences related body.
Our complete 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.
Since the program you select can have a significant impact on your future, we've developed a number of rankings, including this Best General Social Sciences Associate Degree Schools in California list, to help you choose the best school for you.
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Any student who is interested in an associate degree in general social sciences has to look into Merced College. Merced Community College District is a large public college located in the city of Merced.
Those general social sciences students who get their associate degree from Merced College make $8,136 more than the standard social sciences graduate.
Ohlone College is a great option for individuals interested in an associate degree in general social sciences. Ohlone College is a moderately-sized public college located in the midsize city of Fremont.
After graduation, social sciences associate recipients typically make around $22,545 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).
Your choice of general social sciences for getting your associate degree school matters. This section explores some of the factors we include in our ranking and how much they vary depending on the school you select. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.
