2025 Best Culinary Arts Associate Degree Schools in California
3
Colleges in California
485
Associate Degrees
Ranked #23 in popularity,
culinary arts is one of the most sought-after associate degree programs in the nation. This means there are lots of options to choose from when you decide to get your degree.
College Factual looked at 3 colleges and universities when compiling its 2025 Best Culinary Arts Associate Degree Schools in California ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 485 associate degrees in culinary arts during the 2022-2023 academic year.
Jump to one of the following sections: * Our Methodology
Choosing a Great Culinary Arts School for Your Associate Degree
The culinary arts 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 culinary arts students as compared to other majors.
- Major Demand - The number of culinary 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 much debt culinary arts 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 culinary arts related body.
Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for culinary arts students working on their associate degree.
One Size Does Not Fit All
Since picking the right college can be one of the most important decisions of your life, we've developed the Best Culinary Arts Associate Degree Schools in California ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.