If you plan on getting your associate degree in fire protection, you won't be alone since the degree program is ranked #36 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.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 3 schools in the Plains States Region to determine which ones were the best for fire protection students pursuing a associate degree. Combined, these schools handed out 168 associate degrees in fire protection to qualified students.
Choosing a Great Fire Protection School for Your Associate Degree
Your choice of fire protection for getting your associate degree school matters. 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 quality 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 fire protection students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - How many other fire protection students want to attend this school to pursue a associate degree.
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 fire protection 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 fire protection related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for fire protection 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 Fire Protection Associate Degree Schools in the Plains States Region list to help you make the college decision.
Best Schools for Associate Students to Study Fire Protection in the Plains States Region
Learn about the top ranked colleges and universities for fire protection students seeking a an associate degree.
Top Plains States Region Schools for an Associate in Fire Protection
Every student who is interested in an associate degree in fire protection has to look into Waldorf University. Located in the rural area of Forest City, Waldorf is a private for-profit university with a small student population.
Associate recipients from the fire protection major at Waldorf University get $12,513 above the average graduate in this field when they enter the workforce.
Any student who is interested in an associate degree in fire protection needs to check out Hutchinson Community College. Located in the town of Hutchinson, Hutchinson Community College is a public college with a small student population.
Students who graduate with their associate from the fire protection program state that they receive average early career wages of $51,007.
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.
Your choice of fire protection for getting your associate degree school matters. 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.