an associate degree in film, video & photographic arts is more popular than many other degrees. In fact, it ranks #68 out of 328 on popularity of all such degrees in the nation. As a result, there are many college that offer the degree, making your choice of school a hard one.
College Factual looked at 7 colleges and universities when compiling its 2025 Best Film, Video & Photographic Arts Associate Degree Schools in the Southeast Region ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 270 associate degrees in film, video & photographic arts during the 2022-2023 academic year.
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 Film, Video & Photographic Arts School for Your Associate Degree
The film associate degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. This section explores some of the factors we include in our ranking and how much they vary depending on the school you select. 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 account for this we consider a college's overall Best Colleges ranking which itself looks at a combination 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 film, video & photographic arts students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - The number of film, video & photographic 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 film, video & photographic 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 film, video & photographic arts related body.
Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for film, video & photographic arts students working on their associate degree.
The film 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 Film, Video & Photographic Arts Associate Degree Schools in the Southeast Region.
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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 one of the best schools in the country for getting an associate degree in film, video & photographic arts. Palm Beach State College is a fairly large public college located in the suburb of Lake Worth.
Associate graduates who receive their degree from the film program make about $21,002 in the first couple years of their career.
Valencia College is a good option for students interested in an associate degree in film, video & photographic arts. Valencia College is a very large public college located in the large city of Orlando.
Students who graduate with their associate from the film program report average early career wages of $16,635.
Miami Dade College is one of the finest schools in the country for getting an associate degree in film, video & photographic arts. MDC is a very large public college located in the large city of Miami.
Associate graduates who receive their degree from the film program make an average of $22,587 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.