Design & Applied Arts is of the hottest associate degree programs in the United States, coming in as the #19 most popular major in the country. So, there are lots of possibilities to explore when you're trying to determine where you want to get your degree.
College Factual reviewed 13 schools in the Great Lakes Region to determine which ones were the best for associate degree seekers in the field of design & applied arts. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 896 associate degrees in design & applied arts during the 2022-2023 academic year.
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Choosing a Great Design & Applied Arts School for Your Associate Degree
The design associate degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. Important measures of a quality design 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
A school that excels in educating for a particular major and degree level must be a great school overall as well. To account for this we include a school's overall Best Colleges ranking which itself looks at a collection of different factors like degree completion, educational resources, student body caliber and post-graduation earnings for the school as a whole.
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
The metrics below are just some of the other metrics that we use to determine our rankings.
Major Focus - How many resources a school devotes to design & applied arts students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - The number of design & applied arts 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 design & applied arts 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 design & applied arts related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for design & applied arts 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 Design & Applied Arts Associate Degree Schools in the Great Lakes Region list to help you make the college decision.
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Take the first step toward a career of visual expression and doing what you love with this online associate degree from Southern New Hampshire University.
Any student who is interested in an associate degree in design & applied arts has to take a look at Madison Area Technical College. Madison College is a large public college located in the city of Madison.
Design & Applied Arts associate degree recipients from Madison Area Technical College get an earnings boost of about $2,632 above the typical income of design & applied arts majors.
It's hard to beat Gateway Technical College if you wish to pursue an associate degree in design & applied arts. Gateway Technical College is a large public college located in the city of Kenosha.
Soon after graduation, design associate recipients usually make around $29,734 at the beginning of their careers.
Any student pursuing a degree in an associate degree in design & applied arts has to take a look at Western Technical College. Western Technical College is a small public college located in the city of La Crosse.
Associate students who receive their degree from the design program earn an average of $23,032 for their early career.
It's hard to beat Ivy Tech Community College if you wish to pursue an associate degree in design & applied arts. Ivy Tech Community College is a fairly large public college located in the large city of Indianapolis.
Soon after graduation, design associate recipients typically make about $26,602 in their early careers.
Located in the suburb of Glen Ellyn, COD is a public college with a very large student population.
Associate recipients from the design & applied arts major at College of DuPage get $3,385 more than the average graduate in this field when they enter the workforce.
Located in the suburb of Pewaukee, WCTC is a public college with a moderately-sized student population.
Design & Applied Arts associate degree recipients from Waukesha County Technical College earn a boost of around $11,017 above the average income of design & applied arts graduates.
Located in the suburb of Appleton, FVTC is a public college with a fairly large student population.
Those design & applied arts students who get their associate degree from Fox Valley Technical College earn $4,595 more than the average design student.
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.
The design associate degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. Important measures of a quality design program can vary widely even among the top schools. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
