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.
In 2025, College Factual analyzed 3 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Design & Applied Arts Associate Degree Schools in North Carolina ranking. Combined, these schools handed out 352 associate degrees in design & applied arts to qualified students.
Translate your creative ideas through concept, design and digital media with a bachelor's in graphic design online from Southern New Hampshire University.
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.
Learn to create a striking portfolio and hone the skills you need to succeed in the world of professional photography with this online digital photography degree from Southern New Hampshire University.
Choosing a Great Design & Applied Arts School for Your Associate Degree
Your choice of design & applied arts for getting your associate degree school matters. This section explores some of the factors we include in our ranking and how much they vary depending on the school you select. 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 quality 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 design & applied arts students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - How many other design & applied arts 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 design & applied arts to pay back their student loans after receiving their associate degree.
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 North Carolina list to help you make the college decision.
DEBUG: Raw major_slug = "visual-and-performing-arts//design-and-applied-arts"
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.
Guilford Technical Community College is one of the best schools in the United States for getting an associate degree in design & applied arts. Guilford Technical Community College is a large public college located in the suburb of Jamestown.
Soon after graduation, design associate recipients typically make around $24,827 in their early careers.
Forsyth Technical Community College is one of the best schools in the country for getting an associate degree in design & applied arts. Forsyth Tech is a medium-sized public college located in the city of Winston-Salem.
Students who graduate with their associate from the design program state that they receive average early career wages of $29,715.
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.
by our College Data Analytics Team
Your choice of design & applied arts for getting your associate degree school matters. This section explores some of the factors we include in our ranking and how much they vary depending on the school you select. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
