Associate degree · earnings 4 years after completing
Highest-Paying Colleges for Biological and Physical Sciences (Associate)
Graduates who complete a associate degree in Biological and Physical Sciences earn a median of $50,181 four years after finishing, and the middle half earn between $32,493 and $73,808. We rank the 39 U.S. colleges whose Biological and Physical Sciences programs have at least 25 graduates in the Scorecard earnings sample, 3,582 graduates in all. That puts Biological and Physical Sciences at #9 of 27 associate degree fields we rank by national median earnings.
San Diego City College, in California, leads at $77,094, 51% above the median ranked school ($51,025). The gap between schools is moderate: the middle half of ranked schools earn between $46,199 and $58,131, and the lowest earns $39,396. 23 of the 39 ranked schools (59%) match or beat the national median.
Public universities dominate the top 20: 20 public, 0 private nonprofit and 0 for-profit. Across all ranked schools, 100% are public. California places 15 schools in the top 20, ahead of Illinois (3).
The top 20 schools cost about the same as the rest of the list: a median net price of $6,483 a year, against $6,909 across all 39 ranked schools. Their graduates who borrowed carry a median of $9,582 in federal loans, about 16% of one year of earnings. Measured against a typical high-school graduate in the same state, the median top-20 school recovers its net cost in about 0.6 years.
Showing the top 39 of 39 ranked schools. Select a column heading to re-sort the table. † = fewer than 40 graduates in the earnings sample.
| 1 | San Diego City College San Diego, CA Public · 4-year | $77,094 | 25 † | — | $7,935 | 0.4 |
| 2 | De Anza College Cupertino, CA Public · 4-year | $71,064 | 28 † | — | $6,642 | 0.4 |
| 3 | Copper Mountain Community College Joshua Tree, CA Public · 2-year | $66,094 | 35 † | — | $9,105 | 0.6 |
| 4 | Santiago Canyon College Orange, CA Public · 2-year | $65,210 | 69 | — | $2,129 | 0.2 |
| 5 | Modesto Junior College Modesto, CA Public · 4-year | $64,444 | 108 | — | $2,818 | 0.2 |
| 6 | Antelope Valley Community College District Lancaster, CA Public · 4-year | $63,614 | 27 † | — | $3,860 | 0.3 |
| 7 | Moreno Valley College Moreno Valley, CA Public · 2-year | $62,331 | 48 | — | $6,483 | 0.5 |
| 8 | Yuba College Marysville, CA Public · 2-year | $59,650 | 62 | — | $2,576 | 0.2 |
| 9 | Los Angeles Pierce College Woodland Hills, CA Public · 2-year | $59,287 | 34 † | — | $13,270 | 1.2 |
| 10 | Ferris State University Big Rapids, MI Public · 4-year | $58,134 | 28 † | $18,853 | $8,624 | 0.7 |
| 11 | Ventura College Ventura, CA Public · 2-year | $58,128 | 30 † | — | — | — |
| 12 | West Valley College Saratoga, CA Public · 2-year | $56,438 | 36 † | — | $3,423 | 0.4 |
| 13 | Shasta College Redding, CA Public · 4-year | $56,192 | 43 | — | $2,878 | 0.3 |
| 14 | Sussex County Community College Newton, NJ Public · 2-year | $55,699 | 27 † | — | $7,859 | 0.8 |
| 15 | Riverside City College Riverside, CA Public · 2-year | $54,768 | 177 | $8,500 | $8,377 | 0.9 |
| 16 | Solano Community College Fairfield, CA Public · 4-year | $53,777 | 31 † | — | $4,669 | 0.6 |
| 17 | City Colleges of Chicago-Wilbur Wright College Chicago, IL Public · 2-year | $53,058 | 245 | — | $6,375 | 0.8 |
| 18 | College of DuPage Glen Ellyn, IL Public · 2-year | $52,007 | 127 | $10,664 | $7,401 | 0.9 |
| 19 | San Diego Mesa College San Diego, CA Public · 4-year | $51,936 | 59 | — | $5,814 | 0.8 |
| 20 | City Colleges of Chicago-Harold Washington College Chicago, IL Public · 2-year | $51,025 | 197 | $6,125 | $7,397 | 1.0 |
| 21 | Victor Valley College Victorville, CA Public · 4-year | $50,905 | 180 | — | $1,947 | 0.3 |
| 22 | Morton College Cicero, IL Public · 2-year | $50,393 | 63 | — | $5,191 | 0.7 |
| 23 | Chaffey College Rancho Cucamonga, CA Public · 2-year | $50,340 | 117 | — | $5,672 | 0.8 |
| 24 | Waubonsee Community College Sugar Grove, IL Public · 2-year | $49,992 | 288 | $6,240 | $11,442 | 1.6 |
| 25 | Parkland College Champaign, IL Public · 2-year | $49,181 | 89 | $7,000 | $8,048 | 1.2 |
| 26 | Rock Valley College Rockford, IL Public · 2-year | $47,679 | 96 | — | $5,242 | 0.9 |
| 27 | San Jacinto Community College Pasadena, TX Public · 4-year | $47,229 | 154 | $5,425 | $12,143 | 2.0 |
| 28 | Northern Virginia Community College Annandale, VA Public · 2-year | $46,956 | 192 | $9,875 | $9,919 | 1.9 |
| 29 | Virginia Peninsula Community College Hampton, VA Public · 2-year | $46,269 | 70 | $9,250 | $7,012 | 1.5 |
| 30 | Kishwaukee College Malta, IL Public · 2-year | $46,128 | 189 | $7,992 | $4,574 | 0.9 |
| 31 | Tidewater Community College Norfolk, VA Public · 2-year | $45,557 | 264 | $9,259 | $11,762 | 2.6 |
| 32 | Norco College Norco, CA Public · 2-year | $44,674 | 45 | — | $5,169 | 1.3 |
| 33 | Imperial Valley College Imperial, CA Public · 2-year | $43,842 | 34 † | — | $1,115 | 0.3 |
| 34 | John Wood Community College Quincy, IL Public · 2-year | $43,445 | 26 † | — | $7,050 | 1.9 |
| 35 | Hudson County Community College Jersey City, NJ Public · 2-year | $43,419 | 64 | $5,750 | $7,307 | 2.3 |
| 36 | Napa Valley College Napa, CA Public · 2-year | $43,305 | 38 † | — | $14,644 | 4.6 |
| 37 | Mt San Jacinto Community College District San Jacinto, CA Public · 2-year | $41,855 | 177 | — | $6,806 | 2.8 |
| 38 | Community College of Baltimore County Baltimore, MD Public · 2-year | $41,514 | 33 † | — | $9,844 | 5.0 |
| 39 | Los Angeles Harbor College Wilmington, CA Public · 2-year | $39,396 | 27 † | — | $13,250 | 11.0 |
How this ranking is built
A school appears here only if it meets every condition below.
- Which programs count
- Main campuses only, one entry per institution. Scorecard reports program outcomes for the whole six-digit federal ID (OPEID6), so branch campuses share their parent’s numbers and are not listed twice.
- Only associate degree programs in Biological and Physical Sciences (CIP 3001, the four-digit code Scorecard uses to group related programs).
- At least 25 graduates in the earnings sample. Smaller samples are left out because their medians swing too much and the counts carry a little privacy noise.
- A major gets a page only when at least 20 schools qualify. This one has 39.
- Ranked by median earnings 4 years after completing, highest first. Ties go to the larger sample, then to the school name.
- Schools missing earnings or a sample size are left out rather than estimated.
- What the numbers mean
- Earnings: median annual earnings of graduates four years after completing. The cohort completed in academic years 2017-18 and 2018-19 and was measured in calendar years 2022 and 2023, in 2024 dollars.
- Who is counted: graduates who received federal student aid (Title IV grants or loans), and only those who were working and not enrolled in more school that year. Graduates without federal aid, those who went on to further study and those with no earnings are not in the median.
- Scorecard adds privacy noise to counts and medians and hides values it cannot protect, so a gap of a few percent between two schools is not meaningful.
- Graduates: the number of graduates in that earnings sample. A † marks fewer than 40, where the figure is less precise.
- Debt: median federal loan debt (Stafford and Grad PLUS loans disbursed at that school) of graduates who borrowed, from the 2018-19 and 2019-20 completers. Parent PLUS and private loans are not included.
- Net price: average yearly cost after grants and scholarships for the whole institution, not this major, academic year 2023-24.
- Payback: 2 years of net price divided by how much these earnings exceed a high-school graduate’s in the school’s state. Shown only when that gap is at least $2,000, the same formula as the rest of the site.
- Source: U.S. Department of Education College Scorecard field-of-study data, June 2026 release.
Top states for Biological and Physical Sciences earnings
Median of the school medians for states with at least 3 ranked schools. The best school in each state is shown.
| State | Median earnings | Ranked schools | Top school |
|---|---|---|---|
| California | $56,315 | 22 | San Diego City College |
| Illinois | $49,992 | 9 | City Colleges of Chicago-Wilbur Wright College |
| Virginia | $46,269 | 3 | Northern Virginia Community College |
Related majors
Other fields to compare, by what graduates earn.
-
Biological and Physical Sciences (Bachelor's)
Same major, Bachelor's level
$58,891 national median · 20 schools
-
Business (General) (Associate)
$49,927 national median · 93 schools
-
Health Sciences (General) (Associate)
$51,180 national median · 25 schools
-
Business Administration (Associate)
$48,733 national median · 254 schools
-
Accounting (Associate)
$47,660 national median · 61 schools
-
Criminal Justice (Associate)
$46,706 national median · 190 schools
-
Computer and Information Sciences (Associate)
$54,246 national median · 44 schools
-
IT Administration and Management (Associate)
$54,726 national median · 30 schools
All majors College rankings How to read Scorecard earnings data Community college vs. four-year college