If you plan on getting your associate degree in visual & performing arts, you won't be alone since the degree program is ranked #9 in the country in terms of popularity. This means you won't have too much trouble finding schools that offer the degree.
In 2025, College Factual analyzed 5 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Visual & Performing Arts Associate Degree Schools in California ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 6,375 associate degrees in visual & performing arts during the 2022-2023 academic year.
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Choosing a Great Visual & Performing Arts School for Your Associate Degree
Your choice of visual & performing arts for getting your associate degree school matters. Important measures of a quality visual & performing arts program can vary widely even among the top schools. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
Quality Overall Is Important
The overall quality of a associate degree school is important to ensure a good 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 Earnings
One measure we use to determine the quality of a school is to look at the average salary of associate graduates during the early years of their career. This is because one of the main reasons people pursue their associate degree is to enable themselves to find better-paying positions.
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 visual & performing arts students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - The number of visual & performing arts students who choose to seek a associate degree at the school.
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 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 visual & performing arts related body.
Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for 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 Visual & Performing Arts Associate Degree Schools in California ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.
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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).
Your choice of visual & performing arts for getting your associate degree school matters. Important measures of a quality visual & performing arts program can vary widely even among the top schools. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
