Agricultural Production is above average in terms of popularity with it being the #86 most popular associate degree program in the country. This means you won't have too much trouble finding schools that offer the degree.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 4 schools in the Plains States Region to determine which ones were the best for agricultural production students pursuing a associate degree. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 239 associate degrees in agricultural production during the 2022-2023 academic year.
Choosing a Great Agricultural Production School for Your Associate Degree
The agricultural production associate degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. Important measures of a quality agricultural production 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
A school that excels in educating for a particular major and degree level must be a great school overall as well. To take this into account we consider a school'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.
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
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 agricultural production students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - The number of agricultural production 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 agricultural production to pay back their student loans after receiving their associate degree.
Accreditation - Whether a school is regionally accredited and/or accredited by a recognized agricultural production related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for agricultural production 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 Agricultural Production Associate Degree Schools in the Plains States Region ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.
Best Schools for Associate Students to Study Agricultural Production in the Plains States Region
The following list ranks the best colleges and universities for pursuing an associate degree in agricultural production.
Top Plains States Region Schools for an Associate in Agricultural Production
It is hard to beat Kirkwood Community College if you wish to pursue an associate degree in agricultural production. Kirkwood Community College is a fairly large public college located in the midsize city of Cedar Rapids.
Those agricultural production students who get their associate degree from Kirkwood Community College earn $9,363 more than the standard agricultural production graduate.
It's hard to beat Mitchell Technical College if you wish to pursue an associate degree in agricultural production. Mitchell Tech is a small public college located in the town of Mitchell.
Agricultural Production associate degree recipients from Mitchell Technical College receive an earnings boost of approximately $7,842 above the average earnings of agricultural production majors.
Every student who is interested in an associate degree in agricultural production needs to check out Nebraska College of Technical Agriculture. Located in the remote area of Curtis, Nebraska College of Technical Agriculture is a public college with a fairly small student population.
Associate graduates who receive their degree from the agricultural production program make around $24,427 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.
Some other college data, including much of the graduate earnings data, comes from the U.S. Department of Education’s (College Scorecard).
The agricultural production associate degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. Important measures of a quality agricultural production program can vary widely even among the top schools. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors: