If you pursue a associate degree in human services, you won't be alone. The field of study is the #31 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 5 schools in the Great Lakes Region to determine which ones were the best for human services students pursuing a associate degree. Combined, these schools handed out 315 associate degrees in human services to qualified students.
DEBUG: Checking offer "Human Services (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" with relevance 1
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "Human Services (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" ACCEPTED (relevance 1)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Doctorate - Human Services (I Have a Masters)" with relevance 1
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "Doctorate - Human Services (I Have a Masters)" ACCEPTED (relevance 1)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Human Services (I Have a Bachelors)" with relevance 1
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "Human Services (I Have a Bachelors)" ACCEPTED (relevance 1)
DEBUG: Checking offer "PhD - Human Services (I Have a Masters)" with relevance 1
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "PhD - Human Services (I Have a Masters)" ACCEPTED (relevance 1)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Social Work & Social Sciences Bachelors Programs (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" with relevance 0.9
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "Social Work & Social Sciences Bachelors Programs (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" ACCEPTED (relevance 0.9)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Social Work & Social Sciences Doctorate Programs (I Have a Masters)" with relevance 0.9
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "Social Work & Social Sciences Doctorate Programs (I Have a Masters)" ACCEPTED (relevance 0.9)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Social Work & Social Sciences Masters Programs (I Have a Bachelors)" with relevance 0.9
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "Social Work & Social Sciences Masters Programs (I Have a Bachelors)" ACCEPTED (relevance 0.9)
DEBUG: Checking offer "BSW - Social Work (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" with relevance 0.7
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "BSW - Social Work (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" REJECTED (relevance 0.7)
DEBUG: Checking offer "DSW - Social Work (I Have a Masters)" with relevance 0.7
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "DSW - Social Work (I Have a Masters)" REJECTED (relevance 0.7)
DEBUG: Checking offer "MSW - Social Work (I Have a Bachelors)" with relevance 0.7
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "MSW - Social Work (I Have a Bachelors)" REJECTED (relevance 0.7)
DEBUG: Checking offer "PhD - Social Work (I Have a Masters)" with relevance 0.7
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "PhD - Social Work (I Have a Masters)" REJECTED (relevance 0.7)
DEBUG: relevant_offers count = 7
DEBUG: relevant_offers > 0, checking for ESYOH offers
DEBUG: ESYOH filtering - found 7 ESYOH offers with relevance >= 0.8
DEBUG: esyoh_offers count = 7
DEBUG: ESYOH offers found, rendering ESYOH widget
DEBUG: most_relevant_only = true, filtering for most relevant
DEBUG: Found 4 offers with relevance >= 1.0
Choosing a Great Human Services School for Your Associate Degree
The human services associate degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. Important measures of a quality human services program can vary widely even among the top schools. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
Overall Quality Is a Must
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 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 much a school focuses on human services students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - How many other human services 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 human services to pay back their student loans after receiving their associate degree.
Accreditation - Whether a school is regionally accredited and/or accredited by a recognized human services related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for human services 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 Human Services Associate Degree Schools in the Great Lakes Region list to help you make the college decision.
DEBUG: Raw major_slug = "social-services-public-administration//human-services"
Rasmussen University - Illinois is one of the best schools in the United States for getting an associate degree in human services. Rasmussen University - Illinois is a small private for-profit university located in the midsize city of Rockford.
Students who graduate with their associate from the human services program report average early career earnings of $33,870.
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).
by our College Data Analytics Team
The human services associate degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. Important measures of a quality human services program can vary widely even among the top schools. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
.jpg){kind=link}