2022 Best Value Associate Degree Colleges for Mechanical Engineering (With Aid)

When pursuing a degree in today’s world, students have many different options to choose from. At College Factual, we’re committed to helping you make that decision by providing information such as that found in our “Best Value ME Schools for an Associate For Those Getting Aid” ranking.

Mechanical Engineering is the 20th most popular major in the country with 47,598 degrees awarded in 2019-2020. In 2017-2018, mechanical engineering graduates who were awarded their degree in 2015-2017, earned an average of $64,495 and had an average of $23,104 in loans still to pay off.

At the associate degree level specifically, there were 318 mechanical engineering graduates with average earnings and debt of $33,082 and $17,678 respectively.

Not only do the schools that top this list have excellent mechanical engineering programs, but they also cost less that schools of similar quality.

To come up with these rankings, we looked at factors such as the cost to attend the school after aid is awarded and overall quality of the mechanical engineering program at the school. See our ranking methodology to learn more.

More Ways to Rank Mechanical Engineering Schools

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 Value ME Schools for an Associate For Those Getting Aid” list to help you make the college decision.

We’ve created a tool called College Combat that lets you create your own customized comparisons based on the factors that matter the most to you. Go ahead and give it a try, or bookmark the link so you can check it out later.

Best Value ME Schools for an Associate For Those Getting Aid

The following schools top our list of the Best Best Value ME Schools for an Associate For Those Getting Aid.

Top 1 Best Value Associate Degree Colleges for Mechanical Engineering (With Aid)

#1

Saint Francis University

Loretto, Pennsylvania

#1 in overall quality

$28,643 Average Net Price

Out of the 1 schools in the Best Value ME Schools for an Associate For Those Getting Aid that were part of this year’s ranking, Saint Francis University landed the #1 spot on the list. Saint Francis University is a small school located in Loretto, Pennsylvania that handed out 4 associates’s ME degrees in 2019-2020.

As a testament to the quality of education offered at Saint Francis, the school also landed the #1 spot in our “Best Mechanical Engineering Associate Degree Schools” ranking. It costs about $28,643 for Associate Degree ME students with aid per year to attend Saint Francis.

The low student loan default rate of 2.3% is a good sign that students have an easier time paying off their loans than they might at other schools. For comparison, the national default rate is 10.1%. The school has an excellent freshman retention rate of 96%, which means students like the school well enough to return for a second year.

Read full report on Mechanical Engineering at Saint Francis University

Notes and References

References

• 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 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).
• Information about the national average student loan default rate is from the U.S. Department of Education and refers to data about the 2016 borrower cohort tracking period for which the cohort default rate (CDR) was 10.1%.

Read more about our data sources and methodologies

Footnotes

• *Average salary, average net price, and average tuition and fees are for the top schools only.
• Some schools otherwise deserving of recognition may have been removed from this ranking in the event that new data identified post-publication warranted it, or at the request of the school.

Credits

• Credit for the banner image above goes to Michel Villeneuve.

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