If you plan on getting your associate degree in general visual & performing arts, you won't be alone since the degree program is ranked #70 in the country in terms of popularity. As a result, there are many college that offer the degree, making your choice of school a hard one.
In 2025, College Factual analyzed 13 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best General Visual & Performing Arts Associate Degree Schools ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 1,740 associate degrees in general visual & performing arts during the <nil> academic year.
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Choosing a Great General Visual & Performing Arts School for Your Associate Degree
Your choice of general visual & performing arts for getting your associate degree school matters. Important measures of a quality visual arts 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 account for this we include a college'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 general visual & performing arts students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - The number of general visual & performing 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 easy is it for general visual & performing 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 general visual & performing arts related body.
Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for general visual & performing arts students working on their associate degree.
Since picking the right college can be one of the most important decisions of your life, we've developed the Best General Visual & Performing Arts Associate Degree Schools ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.
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It's difficult to beat Austin Community College District if you wish to pursue an associate degree in general visual & performing arts. Located in the city of Austin, Austin Community College District is a public college with a very large student population.
Associate recipients from the general visual & performing arts program at Austin Community College District make $7,430 more than the average college grad in this field shortly after graduation.
San Jacinto Community College is a great choice for students pursuing an associate degree in general visual & performing arts. Located in the medium-sized city of Pasadena, San Jacinto College is a public college with a very large student population.
Associate graduates who receive their degree from the visual arts program earn about $21,173 in the first couple years of working.
Suffolk County Community College is one of the best schools in the country for getting an associate degree in general visual & performing arts. Suffolk County Community College is a very large public college located in the large suburb of Selden.
Students who graduate with their associate from the visual arts program state that they receive average early career wages of $23,694.
Pima County Community College District is a fairly large public college located in the city of Tucson.
Associate recipients from the general visual & performing arts program at Pima Community College get $3,105 above the typical college grad in this field shortly after graduation.
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).