Public Administration & Social Service is about average in terms of popularity for associate degrees programs. That is, it ranks #18 out of the 38 majors across the country that we analyze each year. So, it might take a little more work to find colleges and universities that offer the degree program.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 11 schools in the Great Lakes Region to determine which ones were the best for public administration & social service students pursuing a associate degree. Combined, these schools handed out 967 associate degrees in public administration & social service to qualified students.
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Choosing a Great Public Administration & Social Service School for Your Associate Degree
Your choice of public administration & social service for getting your associate degree school matters. Important measures of a quality public administration & social service 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 host 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 public administration & social service students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - The number of public administration & social service students who choose to seek a associate degree at the school.
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 public administration & social service 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 public administration & social service related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for public administration & social service students working on their associate degree.
The public administration & social service 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 Public Administration & Social Service Associate Degree Schools in the Great Lakes Region.
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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 public administration & social service for getting your associate degree school matters. Important measures of a quality public administration & social service program can vary widely even among the top schools. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.
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