Associate degree · earnings 4 years after completing
Highest-Paying Colleges for Computer and Information Sciences (Associate)
Graduates who complete a associate degree in Computer and Information Sciences earn a median of $54,246 four years after finishing, and the middle half earn between $35,954 and $76,280. We rank the 44 U.S. colleges whose Computer and Information Sciences programs have at least 25 graduates in the Scorecard earnings sample, 3,903 graduates in all. That puts Computer and Information Sciences at #7 of 27 associate degree fields we rank by national median earnings.
Montgomery College, in Maryland, leads at $85,438, 45% above the median ranked school ($58,736). The gap between schools is moderate: the middle half of ranked schools earn between $51,930 and $64,888, and the lowest earns $38,385. 30 of the 44 ranked schools (68%) match or beat the national median.
Public universities dominate the top 20: 18 public, 1 private nonprofit and 1 for-profit. Across all ranked schools, 86% are public. The top 20 are spread across 16 states, with Maryland the most common (2).
The top 20 schools cost about the same as the rest of the list: a median net price of $7,667 a year, against $7,536 across all 44 ranked schools. Their graduates who borrowed carry a median of $9,903 in federal loans, about 15% 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 0.5 years.
Showing the top 44 of 44 ranked schools. Select a column heading to re-sort the table. † = fewer than 40 graduates in the earnings sample.
| 1 | Montgomery College Rockville, MD Public · 2-year | $85,438 | 25 † | $8,537 | $8,027 | 0.3 |
| 2 | Community College of Baltimore County Baltimore, MD Public · 2-year | $79,144 | 32 † | — | $9,844 | 0.5 |
| 3 | Austin Community College District Austin, TX Public · 4-year | $77,248 | 107 | $7,348 | $6,390 | 0.3 |
| 4 | Salt Lake Community College Salt Lake City, UT Public · 2-year | $74,200 | 105 | $8,041 | $9,804 | 0.6 |
| 5 | Central Piedmont Community College Charlotte, NC Public · 2-year | $69,094 | 60 | — | $3,345 | 0.2 |
| 6 | Metropolitan Community College Area Omaha, NE Public · 2-year | $68,711 | 84 | $9,903 | $4,982 | 0.3 |
| 7 | Northern Virginia Community College Annandale, VA Public · 2-year | $67,847 | 246 | $9,052 | $9,919 | 0.6 |
| 8 | Southern New Hampshire University Manchester, NH Private nonprofit · 4-year | $67,194 | 298 | $16,500 | $36,708 | 2.9 |
| 9 | Cameron University Lawton, OK Public · 4-year | $67,022 | 39 † | $19,750 | $10,912 | 0.7 |
| 10 | Oklahoma City Community College Oklahoma City, OK Public · 2-year | $66,525 | 67 | $12,582 | $4,739 | 0.3 |
| 11 | Colorado Technical University-Colorado Springs Colorado Springs, CO For-profit · 4-year | $65,552 | 36 † | $16,550 | $16,745 | 1.3 |
| 12 | Delaware Technical Community College-Terry Dover, DE Public · 4-year | $64,667 | 43 | $7,218 | $11,578 | 0.8 |
| 13 | Florida State College at Jacksonville Jacksonville, FL Public · 4-year | $64,039 | 31 † | — | $4,128 | 0.3 |
| 14 | Northern Essex Community College Haverhill, MA Public · 2-year | $63,596 | 41 | $12,250 | $6,046 | 0.5 |
| 15 | Brookdale Community College Lincroft, NJ Public · 2-year | $63,402 | 52 | $8,675 | $11,231 | 0.8 |
| 16 | Tarrant County College District Fort Worth, TX Public · 2-year | $62,594 | 41 | — | $4,337 | 0.3 |
| 17 | Minnesota State Community and Technical College Fergus Falls, MN Public · 2-year | $62,231 | 42 | $16,594 | $12,556 | 1.0 |
| 18 | Pellissippi State Community College Knoxville, TN Public · 2-year | $60,943 | 39 † | — | $4,983 | 0.4 |
| 19 | Hudson County Community College Jersey City, NJ Public · 2-year | $59,480 | 40 | — | $7,307 | 0.6 |
| 20 | CUNY New York City College of Technology Brooklyn, NY Public · 4-year | $59,137 | 68 | — | $5,127 | 0.4 |
| 21 | Erie Community College Buffalo, NY Public · 2-year | $58,940 | 44 | $8,450 | $7,765 | 0.7 |
| 22 | Community College of Allegheny County Pittsburgh, PA Public · 2-year | $58,905 | 52 | $8,192 | $13,970 | 1.2 |
| 23 | University of Phoenix-Arizona Phoenix, AZ For-profit · 4-year | $58,567 | 889 | $19,120 | $13,520 | 1.2 |
| 24 | Monroe Community College Rochester, NY Public · 2-year | $57,829 | 28 † | $7,969 | $6,353 | 0.6 |
| 25 | Bristol Community College Fall River, MA Public · 2-year | $57,413 | 42 | $4,433 | $5,547 | 0.7 |
| 26 | Nassau Community College Garden City, NY Public · 2-year | $57,178 | 66 | $10,666 | $7,095 | 0.7 |
| 27 | Chattanooga State Community College Chattanooga, TN Public · 2-year | $57,028 | 30 † | $13,595 | $5,283 | 0.5 |
| 28 | Tulsa Community College Tulsa, OK Public · 2-year | $55,027 | 44 | — | $6,288 | 0.6 |
| 29 | Suffolk County Community College Selden, NY Public · 2-year | $54,581 | 36 † | $8,630 | $5,258 | 0.6 |
| 30 | Georgia Military College Milledgeville, GA Public · 4-year | $54,270 | 48 | $12,202 | $16,923 | 1.7 |
| 31 | Monroe University Bronx, NY For-profit · 4-year | $54,205 | 104 | $12,914 | $14,522 | 1.6 |
| 32 | Indian River State College Fort Pierce, FL Public · 4-year | $53,480 | 30 † | — | $3,815 | 0.4 |
| 33 | Keiser University-Ft Lauderdale Fort Lauderdale, FL Private nonprofit · 4-year | $51,977 | 248 | $22,500 | $30,498 | 3.5 |
| 34 | Guilford Technical Community College Jamestown, NC Public · 2-year | $51,788 | 75 | $20,000 | $15,002 | 1.7 |
| 35 | CUNY Borough of Manhattan Community College New York, NY Public · 2-year | $51,649 | 137 | $9,500 | $4,976 | 0.6 |
| 36 | Walters State Community College Morristown, TN Public · 2-year | $51,498 | 29 † | — | $5,387 | 0.6 |
| 37 | Tidewater Community College Norfolk, VA Public · 2-year | $50,852 | 79 | $13,230 | $11,762 | 1.7 |
| 38 | Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College Perkinston, MS Public · 2-year | $48,304 | 26 † | — | $6,962 | 0.8 |
| 39 | Community College of Philadelphia Philadelphia, PA Public · 2-year | $46,191 | 59 | $10,209 | $11,911 | 2.5 |
| 40 | Volunteer State Community College Gallatin, TN Public · 2-year | $45,407 | 65 | $9,500 | $7,802 | 1.5 |
| 41 | South Texas College McAllen, TX Public · 4-year | $43,650 | 43 | — | $1,751 | 0.4 |
| 42 | Baltimore City Community College Baltimore, MD Public · 2-year | $42,308 | 27 † | — | $15,987 | 6.7 |
| 43 | Lewis University Romeoville, IL Private nonprofit · 4-year | $39,620 | 175 | — | $17,028 | 9.6 |
| 44 | Northeast State Community College Blountville, TN Public · 2-year | $38,385 | 31 † | — | $6,864 | 3.8 |
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 Computer and Information Sciences (CIP 1101, 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 44.
- 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 Computer and Information 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Maryland | $79,144 | 3 | Montgomery College |
| Oklahoma | $66,525 | 3 | Cameron University |
| Texas | $62,594 | 3 | Austin Community College District |
| New York | $57,178 | 7 | CUNY New York City College of Technology |
| Florida | $53,480 | 3 | Florida State College at Jacksonville |
| Tennessee | $51,498 | 5 | Pellissippi State Community College |
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