Human Services is of the hottest associate degree programs in the United States, coming in as the #31 most popular major in the country. This makes choosing the right school a hard decision.
In 2024, College Factual analyzed 2 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Human Services Associate Degree Schools in the Southwest Region ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 51 associate degrees in human services during the 2020-2021 academic year.
One measure we use to determine the quality of a school is to look at the average salary of associate graduates during the early years of their career. This is because one of the main reasons people pursue their associate degree is to enable themselves to find better-paying positions.
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 human services students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - How many other human services 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 easy is it for human services to pay back their student loans after receiving their associate degree.
Accreditation - Whether a school is regionally accredited and/or accredited by a recognized human services related body.
Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for human services 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 Human Services Associate Degree Schools in the Southwest Region ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.
Best Schools for Associate Students to Study Human Services in the Southwest Region
The following list ranks the best colleges and universities for pursuing an associate degree in human services.
Top Southwest Region Schools for an Associate in Human Services
It's difficult to beat University of Phoenix - Arizona if you want to pursue an associate degree in human services. UOPX - Arizona is a very large private for-profit university located in the city of Phoenix.
Soon after graduation, human services associate recipients usually make about $26,261 in the first five 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).