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 looked at 6 colleges and universities when compiling its 2025 Best Design & Applied Arts Associate Degree Schools in Florida ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 258 associate degrees in design & applied arts during the 2022-2023 academic year.
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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.
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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 consider a school's overall Best Colleges ranking which itself looks at a combination 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 complete 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.
The design 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 Design & Applied Arts Associate Degree Schools in Florida.
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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.
Palm Beach State College is a good choice for individuals interested in an associate degree in design & applied arts. Palm Beach State College is a fairly large public college located in the large suburb of Lake Worth.
Those design & applied arts students who get their associate degree from Palm Beach State College make $8,820 more than the standard design grad.
Rasmussen University - Florida is one of the finest schools in the country for getting an associate degree in design & applied arts. Located in the small city of Ocala, Rasmussen University - Florida is a private for-profit university with a small student population.
Associate recipients from the design & applied arts major at Rasmussen University - Florida earn $4,298 more than the typical graduate in this field when they enter the workforce.
Any student who is interested in an associate degree in design & applied arts has to take a look at Miami Dade College. MDC is a very large public college located in the city of Miami.
Design & Applied Arts associate degree recipients from Miami Dade College receive an earnings boost of around $2,518 over the average income of design & applied arts graduates.
It's difficult to beat Seminole State College of Florida if you want to pursue an associate degree in design & applied arts. Seminole State is a large public college located in the city of Sanford.
Associate recipients from the design & applied arts degree program at Seminole State College of Florida get $3,399 more than the standard college graduate in this field when they enter the workforce.
Located in the midsize city of Fort Lauderdale, Keiser University - Ft Lauderdale is a private not-for-profit university with a very large student population.
Associate graduates who receive their degree from the design program earn around $20,360 in their early career salary.
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:
