Associate degree · earnings 4 years after completing
Highest-Paying Colleges for Business (General) (Associate)
Graduates who complete a associate degree in Business (General) earn a median of $49,927 four years after finishing, and the middle half earn between $33,112 and $69,450. We rank the 93 U.S. colleges whose Business (General) programs have at least 25 graduates in the Scorecard earnings sample, 7,554 graduates in all. That puts Business (General) at #10 of 27 associate degree fields we rank by national median earnings.
Thomas More University, in Kentucky, leads at $83,959, 63% above the median ranked school ($51,389). The gap between schools is moderate: the middle half of ranked schools earn between $45,010 and $58,398, and the lowest earns $26,829. 50 of the 93 ranked schools (54%) match or beat the national median.
Public universities dominate the top 20: 15 public, 4 private nonprofit and 1 for-profit. Across all ranked schools, 87% are public. Washington places 4 schools in the top 20, ahead of Maryland (2).
The top 20 schools cost about the same as the rest of the list: a median net price of $9,701 a year, against $9,346 across all 93 ranked schools. Their graduates who borrowed carry a median of $10,983 in federal loans, about 18% 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 0.9 years.
Showing the top 50 of 93 ranked schools. Select a column heading to re-sort the table. † = fewer than 40 graduates in the earnings sample.
| 1 | Thomas More University Crestview Hills, KY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $83,959 | 39 † | $42,000 | $21,835 | 0.9 |
| 2 | Champlain College Burlington, VT Private nonprofit · 4-year | $70,296 | 26 † | $22,000 | $35,860 | 2.2 |
| 3 | Montgomery College Rockville, MD Public · 2-year | $69,485 | 59 | $10,898 | $8,027 | 0.5 |
| 4 | Raritan Valley Community College Branchburg, NJ Public · 2-year | $67,183 | 126 | $9,653 | $6,778 | 0.4 |
| 5 | Tacoma Community College Tacoma, WA Public · 4-year | $65,130 | 54 | $10,983 | $8,376 | 0.7 |
| 6 | Green River College Auburn, WA Public · 4-year | $64,756 | 46 | — | $13,803 | 1.1 |
| 7 | Seattle Central College Seattle, WA Public · 4-year | $64,128 | 39 † | — | $8,819 | 0.8 |
| 8 | Empire State University Saratoga Springs, NY Public · 4-year | $63,915 | 91 | $14,250 | $11,676 | 0.8 |
| 9 | Collin County Community College District McKinney, TX Public · 4-year | $63,117 | 58 | $5,671 | $8,969 | 0.6 |
| 10 | Salt Lake Community College Salt Lake City, UT Public · 2-year | $62,945 | 196 | $9,053 | $9,804 | 0.8 |
| 11 | Indiana Wesleyan University-Marion Marion, IN Private nonprofit · 4-year | $62,059 | 458 | $24,250 | $22,866 | 1.8 |
| 12 | Pennsylvania State University-Main Campus University Park, PA Public · 4-year | $61,596 | 124 | $17,701 | $32,875 | 2.6 |
| 13 | American Public University System Charles Town, WV For-profit · 4-year | $61,313 | 108 | $21,625 | $9,597 | 0.7 |
| 14 | Davenport University Grand Rapids, MI Private nonprofit · 4-year | $61,192 | 97 | $27,094 | $17,707 | 1.3 |
| 15 | South Puget Sound Community College Olympia, WA Public · 4-year | $61,110 | 35 † | — | $9,132 | 0.9 |
| 16 | Northland Community and Technical College Thief River Falls, MN Public · 2-year | $60,724 | 25 † | $10,753 | $13,975 | 1.2 |
| 17 | Montgomery County Community College Blue Bell, PA Public · 2-year | $60,598 | 123 | $10,643 | $11,124 | 0.9 |
| 18 | Macomb Community College Warren, MI Public · 2-year | $60,441 | 112 | $4,802 | $1,618 | 0.1 |
| 19 | Harford Community College Bel Air, MD Public · 2-year | $60,346 | 56 | $10,750 | $9,234 | 0.8 |
| 20 | Quinsigamond Community College Worcester, MA Public · 2-year | $59,139 | 68 | $14,904 | $9,090 | 1.0 |
| 21 | Prince George's Community College Largo, MD Public · 2-year | $58,987 | 34 † | $11,370 | $8,672 | 0.8 |
| 22 | Austin Community College District Austin, TX Public · 4-year | $58,664 | 312 | $9,000 | $6,390 | 0.5 |
| 23 | Dallas College Dallas, TX Public · 4-year | $58,548 | 134 | $9,000 | $3,214 | 0.3 |
| 24 | Edmonds College Lynnwood, WA Public · 4-year | $58,398 | 45 | — | $11,010 | 1.2 |
| 25 | Olympic College Bremerton, WA Public · 4-year | $58,325 | 40 | — | $7,172 | 0.8 |
| 26 | Passaic County Community College Paterson, NJ Public · 2-year | $57,807 | 67 | $3,800 | $7,761 | 0.7 |
| 27 | Anoka-Ramsey Community College Coon Rapids, MN Public · 2-year | $57,378 | 55 | $20,186 | $16,434 | 1.7 |
| 28 | Northern Essex Community College Haverhill, MA Public · 2-year | $57,171 | 88 | $8,505 | $6,046 | 0.7 |
| 29 | Clark College Vancouver, WA Public · 4-year | $55,676 | 113 | $10,325 | $11,465 | 1.5 |
| 30 | Mount Wachusett Community College Gardner, MA Public · 2-year | $55,418 | 37 † | $8,274 | $7,931 | 1.1 |
| 31 | Mt San Antonio College Walnut, CA Public · 2-year | $55,000 | 40 | — | $6,490 | 0.7 |
| 32 | Hagerstown Community College Hagerstown, MD Public · 2-year | $54,945 | 67 | $11,591 | $6,835 | 0.8 |
| 33 | College of Western Idaho Nampa, ID Public · 4-year | $54,914 | 75 | $9,000 | $8,500 | 0.9 |
| 34 | Community College of Philadelphia Philadelphia, PA Public · 2-year | $54,793 | 237 | $10,500 | $11,911 | 1.3 |
| 35 | Rose State College Midwest City, OK Public · 4-year | $54,667 | 33 † | $8,625 | $12,148 | 1.2 |
| 36 | Northampton County Area Community College Bethlehem, PA Public · 2-year | $54,661 | 81 | $13,849 | $12,119 | 1.3 |
| 37 | Liberty University Lynchburg, VA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $54,647 | 123 | $25,000 | $29,357 | 3.3 |
| 38 | Columbia College (MO) Columbia, MO Private nonprofit · 4-year | $54,522 | 153 | $23,258 | $22,715 | 2.3 |
| 39 | Frederick Community College Frederick, MD Public · 2-year | $54,249 | 45 | $5,380 | $9,465 | 1.1 |
| 40 | Blinn College District Brenham, TX Public · 2-year | $53,840 | 44 | $12,000 | $10,844 | 1.1 |
| 41 | Delaware Technical Community College-Terry Dover, DE Public · 4-year | $53,795 | 25 † | — | $11,578 | 1.3 |
| 42 | Carroll Community College Westminster, MD Public · 2-year | $53,339 | 33 † | — | $2,725 | 0.3 |
| 43 | San Jacinto Community College Pasadena, TX Public · 4-year | $53,335 | 269 | $9,950 | $12,143 | 1.3 |
| 44 | Connecticut State Community College New Britain, CT Public · 2-year | $52,628 | 222 | — | $11,513 | 1.5 |
| 45 | Howard Community College Columbia, MD Public · 2-year | $52,569 | 33 † | — | $11,133 | 1.5 |
| 46 | Oklahoma City Community College Oklahoma City, OK Public · 2-year | $52,325 | 185 | $9,058 | $4,739 | 0.5 |
| 47 | College of Staten Island CUNY Staten Island, NY Public · 4-year | $51,389 | 54 | $9,500 | $5,579 | 0.7 |
| 48 | Bakersfield College Bakersfield, CA Public · 4-year | $51,090 | 35 † | — | $14,621 | 2.1 |
| 49 | Lone Star College System The Woodlands, TX Public · 4-year | $50,531 | 49 | $6,750 | $11,252 | 1.4 |
| 50 | Minnesota State Community and Technical College Fergus Falls, MN Public · 2-year | $49,931 | 33 † | $18,250 | $12,556 | 2.1 |
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 Business (General) (CIP 5201, 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 93.
- 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 Business (General) 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Washington | $61,110 | 7 | Tacoma Community College |
| New Jersey | $57,807 | 3 | Raritan Valley Community College |
| Massachusetts | $55,418 | 5 | Quinsigamond Community College |
| Maryland | $54,597 | 8 | Montgomery College |
| Minnesota | $53,655 | 4 | Northland Community and Technical College |
| New York | $51,389 | 3 | Empire State University |
| California | $48,779 | 5 | Mt San Antonio College |
| Pennsylvania | $47,299 | 10 | Pennsylvania State University-Main Campus |
| West Virginia | $47,073 | 3 | American Public University System |
| Texas | $46,890 | 15 | Collin County Community College District |
Related majors
Other fields to compare, by what graduates earn.
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Biological and Physical Sciences (Associate)
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Health Sciences (General) (Associate)
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Criminal Justice (Associate)
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$54,246 national median · 44 schools
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IT Administration and Management (Associate)
$54,726 national median · 30 schools
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