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 reviewed 3 schools in the Rocky Mountains Region to determine which ones were the best for associate degree seekers in the field of culinary arts. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 1,252 associate degrees in culinary arts during the 2022-2023 academic year.
Choosing a Great Culinary Arts School for Your Associate Degree
Your choice of culinary arts for getting your associate degree school matters. Important measures of a quality culinary arts program can vary widely even among the top schools. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.
A Great Overall School
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 college'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.
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
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 culinary arts students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - How many other culinary arts students want to attend this school to pursue a associate degree.
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 culinary arts to pay back their student loans after receiving their associate degree.
Accreditation - Whether a school is regionally accredited and/or accredited by a recognized culinary arts related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for culinary arts 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 Culinary Arts Associate Degree Schools in the Rocky Mountains Region ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.
Best Schools for Associate Students to Study Culinary Arts in the Rocky Mountains Region
Learn about the top ranked colleges and universities for culinary arts students seeking a an associate degree.
Top Rocky Mountains Region Schools for an Associate in Culinary Arts
Every student pursuing a degree in an associate degree in culinary arts has to take a look at Salt Lake Community College. Salt Lake Community College is a very large public college located in the large suburb of Salt Lake City.
Culinary Arts associate degree recipients from Salt Lake Community College earn a boost of about $2,563 over the typical earnings of culinary arts majors.
Auguste Escoffier School of Culinary Arts - Boulder is one of the best schools in the country for getting an associate degree in culinary arts. Escoffier - Boulder is a moderately-sized private for-profit school located in the midsize city of Boulder.
Associate students who receive their degree from the culinary arts program make around $30,224 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).
Your choice of culinary arts for getting your associate degree school matters. Important measures of a quality culinary arts program can vary widely even among the top schools. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.
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