Nursing is of the hottest associate degree programs in the United States, coming in as the #2 most popular major in the country. So, there are lots of possibilities to explore when you're trying to determine where you want to get your degree.
College Factual looked at 3 colleges and universities when compiling its 2025 Best Nursing Associate Degree Schools in Connecticut ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 737 associate degrees in nursing during the 2022-2023 academic year.
Choosing a Great Nursing School for Your Associate Degree
The nursing associate degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. Important measures of a quality nursing program can vary widely even among the top schools. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
Overall Quality Is a Must
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 Early-Career Salaries
To determine the overall quality of a graduate school, one factor we look at is the average early-career salary of those receiving their associate degree from the school. After all, your associate degree won't mean much if it doesn't help you find a job that will help you earn a living.
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 nursing students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - The number of nursing 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 nursing 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 nursing related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for nursing students working on their associate degree.
The nursing school you choose to invest your time and money in matters. To help you make the decision that is right for you, we've developed a number of major-specific rankings, including this list of the Best Nursing Associate Degree Schools in Connecticut.
Best Schools for Associate Students to Study Nursing in Connecticut
Below you'll see a list of the best colleges and universities for pursuing an associate degree in nursing.
Top Connecticut Schools for an Associate in Nursing
It's difficult to beat Capital Community College if you wish to pursue an associate degree in nursing. Capital Community College is a fairly large public college located in the midsize city of Hartford.
Students who graduate with their associate from the nursing program state that they receive average early career earnings of $76,364.
Any student who is interested in an associate degree in nursing has to look into Sacred Heart University. Sacred Heart is a large private not-for-profit university located in the suburb of Fairfield.
Those nursing students who get their associate degree from Sacred Heart University earn $3,984 more than the standard nursing graduate.
Goodwin College is a great choice for students interested in an associate degree in nursing. Located in the small city of East Hartford, Goodwin is a private not-for-profit college with a small student population.
Associate students who receive their degree from the nursing program make an average of $79,227 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).