Associate degree · earnings 4 years after completing
Highest-Paying Colleges for Psychology (Associate)
Graduates who complete a associate degree in Psychology earn a median of $39,288 four years after finishing, and the middle half earn between $24,817 and $53,171. We rank the 52 U.S. colleges whose Psychology programs have at least 25 graduates in the Scorecard earnings sample, 2,932 graduates in all. That puts Psychology at #23 of 27 associate degree fields we rank, toward the lower end of the pay scale.
University of Cincinnati-Main Campus, in Ohio, leads at $49,853, 24% above the median ranked school ($40,081). Most schools are tightly bunched: the middle half of ranked schools earn between $37,551 and $42,206, and the lowest earns $30,857, so outside the leaders the choice of school moves earnings less than the choice of major. 28 of the 52 ranked schools (54%) 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, 98% are public. California places 13 schools in the top 20, ahead of Pennsylvania (3).
The top 20 schools cost less than most: a median net price of $5,667 a year, against $6,371 across all 52 ranked schools. Their graduates who borrowed carry a median of $11,110 in federal loans, about 26% 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 1.7 years.
Showing the top 50 of 52 ranked schools. Select a column heading to re-sort the table. † = fewer than 40 graduates in the earnings sample.
| 1 | University of Cincinnati-Main Campus Cincinnati, OH Public · 4-year | $49,853 | 31 † | $17,500 | $25,648 | 3.7 |
| 2 | College of San Mateo San Mateo, CA Public · 2-year | $49,708 | 33 † | — | $536 | 0.1 |
| 3 | San Diego Mesa College San Diego, CA Public · 4-year | $48,650 | 77 | — | $5,814 | 1.0 |
| 4 | Diablo Valley College Pleasant Hill, CA Public · 2-year | $48,309 | 104 | — | $8,312 | 1.5 |
| 5 | Skyline College San Bruno, CA Public · 4-year | $47,301 | 55 | — | $1,738 | 0.3 |
| 6 | CUNY LaGuardia Community College Long Island City, NY Public · 2-year | $46,131 | 196 | $8,650 | $6,120 | 1.2 |
| 7 | Evergreen Valley College San Jose, CA Public · 2-year | $45,179 | 35 † | — | $12,414 | 3.0 |
| 8 | Harrisburg Area Community College Harrisburg, PA Public · 2-year | $44,652 | 28 † | $15,875 | $14,471 | 3.5 |
| 9 | Rockland Community College Suffern, NY Public · 2-year | $44,186 | 33 † | — | $11,282 | 2.7 |
| 10 | Las Positas College Livermore, CA Public · 2-year | $42,894 | 26 † | — | $5,377 | 1.8 |
| 11 | Shasta College Redding, CA Public · 4-year | $42,847 | 32 † | — | $2,878 | 1.0 |
| 12 | Pasadena City College Pasadena, CA Public · 2-year | $42,700 | 55 | — | $3,864 | 1.4 |
| 13 | Solano Community College Fairfield, CA Public · 4-year | $42,301 | 25 † | — | $4,669 | 1.8 |
| 14 | College of the Canyons Santa Clarita, CA Public · 4-year | $42,174 | 65 | — | $3,702 | 1.4 |
| 15 | Southwestern College (CA) Chula Vista, CA Public · 2-year | $41,995 | 57 | — | $12,671 | 5.0 |
| 16 | Bucks County Community College Newtown, PA Public · 2-year | $41,441 | 36 † | $10,469 | $6,389 | 2.6 |
| 17 | Community College of Philadelphia Philadelphia, PA Public · 2-year | $41,375 | 84 | $11,000 | $11,911 | 4.9 |
| 18 | Butte College Oroville, CA Public · 2-year | $41,185 | 84 | — | $5,520 | 2.6 |
| 19 | West Valley College Saratoga, CA Public · 2-year | $41,180 | 30 † | — | $3,423 | 1.6 |
| 20 | Oklahoma City Community College Oklahoma City, OK Public · 2-year | $40,978 | 92 | $11,220 | $4,739 | 1.5 |
| 21 | CUNY Borough of Manhattan Community College New York, NY Public · 2-year | $40,967 | 132 | $6,000 | $4,976 | 1.9 |
| 22 | Bunker Hill Community College Boston, MA Public · 2-year | $40,918 | 50 | — | $7,818 | — |
| 23 | Austin Community College District Austin, TX Public · 4-year | $40,744 | 77 | $9,000 | $6,390 | 2.2 |
| 24 | Tyler Junior College Tyler, TX Public · 4-year | $40,517 | 34 † | $15,176 | $10,206 | 3.6 |
| 25 | Mt San Antonio College Walnut, CA Public · 2-year | $40,348 | 113 | — | $6,490 | 3.8 |
| 26 | Modesto Junior College Modesto, CA Public · 4-year | $40,301 | 60 | — | $2,818 | 1.7 |
| 27 | Navarro College Corsicana, TX Public · 4-year | $39,860 | 30 † | $12,875 | $14,820 | 5.9 |
| 28 | Sacramento City College Sacramento, CA Public · 2-year | $39,363 | 38 † | — | $6,614 | 5.5 |
| 29 | Northwest Vista College San Antonio, TX Public · 4-year | $38,903 | 41 | — | $4,525 | 2.2 |
| 30 | Bakersfield College Bakersfield, CA Public · 4-year | $38,723 | 29 † | — | $14,621 | — |
| 31 | Monroe Community College Rochester, NY Public · 2-year | $38,612 | 40 | $7,899 | $6,353 | 4.4 |
| 32 | Antelope Valley Community College District Lancaster, CA Public · 4-year | $38,497 | 46 | — | $3,860 | — |
| 33 | Salt Lake Community College Salt Lake City, UT Public · 2-year | $38,455 | 84 | $6,985 | $9,804 | — |
| 34 | Rose State College Midwest City, OK Public · 4-year | $38,415 | 46 | $11,567 | $12,148 | 6.7 |
| 35 | Cosumnes River College Sacramento, CA Public · 2-year | $38,333 | 26 † | — | $5,981 | — |
| 36 | Delaware County Community College Media, PA Public · 2-year | $37,761 | 56 | $15,271 | $6,576 | — |
| 37 | San Diego City College San Diego, CA Public · 4-year | $37,754 | 47 | — | $7,935 | — |
| 38 | Amarillo College Amarillo, TX Public · 2-year | $37,684 | 34 † | $18,436 | $4,600 | 3.2 |
| 39 | Lemoore College Lemoore, CA Public · 2-year | $37,572 | 48 | — | $10,832 | — |
| 40 | College of Southern Nevada Las Vegas, NV Public · 4-year | $37,489 | 65 | $6,450 | $6,615 | — |
| 41 | Liberty University Lynchburg, VA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $37,200 | 118 | $26,313 | $29,357 | — |
| 42 | Hartnell College Salinas, CA Public · 2-year | $36,100 | 36 † | — | $2,039 | — |
| 43 | Connecticut State Community College New Britain, CT Public · 2-year | $35,527 | 25 † | — | $11,513 | — |
| 44 | Riverside City College Riverside, CA Public · 2-year | $35,005 | 32 † | — | $8,377 | — |
| 45 | Los Medanos College Pittsburg, CA Public · 2-year | $34,899 | 30 † | — | $7,443 | — |
| 46 | Georgia Military College Milledgeville, GA Public · 4-year | $34,197 | 37 † | $7,580 | $16,923 | — |
| 47 | El Paso Community College El Paso, TX Public · 2-year | $34,065 | 101 | $6,766 | $3,206 | — |
| 48 | Imperial Valley College Imperial, CA Public · 2-year | $33,364 | 36 † | — | $1,115 | — |
| 49 | Laredo College Laredo, TX Public · 4-year | $32,487 | 48 | — | $5,798 | — |
| 50 | Holmes Community College Goodman, MS Public · 2-year | $31,771 | 33 † | — | $5,643 | — |
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 Psychology (CIP 4201, 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 52.
- 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 Psychology 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| New York | $42,577 | 4 | CUNY LaGuardia Community College |
| Pennsylvania | $41,408 | 4 | Harrisburg Area Community College |
| California | $41,180 | 25 | College of San Mateo |
| Texas | $37,684 | 9 | Austin Community College District |
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