Human Services is of the hottest associate degree programs in the United States, coming in as the #31 most popular major in the country. This makes choosing the right school a hard decision.
In 2025, College Factual analyzed 6 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Human Services Associate Degree Schools in the Plains States Region ranking. Combined, these schools handed out 243 associate degrees in human services to qualified students.
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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. 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 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 complete 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 Plains States Region list to help you make the college decision.
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Century College is a good choice for individuals interested in an associate degree in human services. Located in the suburb of White Bear Lake, Century College is a public college with a medium-sized student population.
Associate recipients from the human services major at Century College earn $7,157 more than the average graduate with the same degree shortly after graduation.
Every student who is interested in an associate degree in human services has to check out Rasmussen University - Minnesota. Rasmussen University - Minnesota is a medium-sized private for-profit university located in the small city of St. Cloud.
Associate students who receive their degree from the human services program make around $33,870 for their early career.
It's difficult to beat Metropolitan Community College if you want to pursue an associate degree in human services. MCC is a large public college located in the city of Omaha.
Associate graduates who receive their degree from the human services program earn about $34,392 in the first couple years of their career.
Minneapolis Community and Technical College is a good decision for students pursuing an associate degree in human services. Minneapolis Community and Technical College is a medium-sized public college located in the city of Minneapolis.
Associate graduates who receive their degree from the human services program earn around $29,762 in the first couple years of their career.
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 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. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
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