If you plan on getting your associate degree in information science, you won't be alone since the degree program is ranked #90 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 2023, College Factual analyzed 15 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Information Science Associate Degree Schools ranking. Combined, these schools handed out 986 associate degrees in information science to qualified students.
Choosing a Great Information Science School for Your Associate Degree
The IS 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
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.
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
In addition to the above, you should consider some of the following factors:
Major Focus - How many resources a school devotes to information science students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - The number of information science 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 much debt information science 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 information science related body.
Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for information science 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 Information Science Associate Degree Schools list to help you make the college decision.
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Featured Information Science Programs
Learn about start dates, transferring credits, availability of financial aid, and more by contacting the universities below.
Gain the specialized knowledge and critical-thinking skills required to begin a career in tech with this online associate degree from Southern New Hampshire University.
Ivy Tech Community College is a great choice for individuals pursuing an associate degree in information science. Located in the city of Indianapolis, Ivy Tech Community College is a public college with a very large student population.
Associate students who receive their degree from the IS program make about $36,153 in their early career salary.
Hudson Valley Community College is one of the finest schools in the United States for getting an associate degree in information science. HVCC is a moderately-sized public college located in the small city of Troy.
Associate students who receive their degree from the IS program earn about $35,382 in their early career salary.
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).