Associate degree · earnings 4 years after completing
Highest-Paying Colleges for Social Sciences (Associate)
Graduates who complete a associate degree in Social Sciences earn a median of $43,146 four years after finishing, and the middle half earn between $26,547 and $59,204. We rank the 21 U.S. colleges whose Social Sciences programs have at least 25 graduates in the Scorecard earnings sample, 2,550 graduates in all. That puts Social Sciences at #18 of 27 associate degree fields we rank by national median earnings.
Ohlone College, in California, leads at $58,928, 33% above the median ranked school ($44,256). Most schools are tightly bunched: the middle half of ranked schools earn between $41,334 and $48,344, and the lowest earns $36,114, so outside the leaders the choice of school moves earnings less than the choice of major. 14 of the 21 ranked schools (67%) 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 11 schools in the top 20, ahead of Virginia (3).
The top 20 schools cost about the same as the rest of the list: a median net price of $6,827 a year, against $6,806 across all 21 ranked schools. Their graduates who borrowed carry a median of $10,500 in federal loans, about 24% 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 1.8 years.
Showing the top 21 of 21 ranked schools. Select a column heading to re-sort the table. † = fewer than 40 graduates in the earnings sample.
| 1 | Ohlone College Fremont, CA Public · 2-year | $58,928 | 76 | — | $11,130 | 1.0 |
| 2 | College of San Mateo San Mateo, CA Public · 2-year | $52,619 | 32 † | — | $536 | 0.1 |
| 3 | De Anza College Cupertino, CA Public · 4-year | $51,460 | 50 | — | $6,642 | 0.9 |
| 4 | Woodland Community College Woodland, CA Public · 2-year | $51,051 | 30 † | — | $8,356 | 1.2 |
| 5 | Pasadena City College Pasadena, CA Public · 2-year | $48,709 | 41 | — | $3,864 | 0.7 |
| 6 | Northern Virginia Community College Annandale, VA Public · 2-year | $48,344 | 318 | $9,750 | $9,919 | 1.7 |
| 7 | Harrisburg Area Community College Harrisburg, PA Public · 2-year | $46,654 | 65 | $21,405 | $14,471 | 2.8 |
| 8 | San Diego Miramar College San Diego, CA Public · 4-year | $46,564 | 29 † | — | $3,337 | 0.7 |
| 9 | Sierra College Rocklin, CA Public · 2-year | $45,195 | 28 † | — | $7,245 | 1.8 |
| 10 | Brookdale Community College Lincroft, NJ Public · 2-year | $44,277 | 275 | $11,000 | $11,231 | 3.1 |
| 11 | Mt San Antonio College Walnut, CA Public · 2-year | $44,256 | 27 † | — | $6,490 | 1.8 |
| 12 | Essex County College Newark, NJ Public · 2-year | $44,106 | 129 | — | $4,436 | 1.2 |
| 13 | Yuba College Marysville, CA Public · 2-year | $43,965 | 53 | — | $2,576 | 0.7 |
| 14 | Massasoit Community College Brockton, MA Public · 2-year | $43,185 | 31 † | — | $8,460 | 7.9 |
| 15 | Virginia Peninsula Community College Hampton, VA Public · 2-year | $42,697 | 146 | $10,500 | $7,012 | 2.3 |
| 16 | Tidewater Community College Norfolk, VA Public · 2-year | $41,334 | 523 | $9,163 | $11,762 | 5.0 |
| 17 | Butte College Oroville, CA Public · 2-year | $40,543 | 354 | $7,500 | $5,520 | 3.1 |
| 18 | Tulsa Community College Tulsa, OK Public · 2-year | $39,945 | 115 | $11,838 | $6,288 | 2.4 |
| 19 | Frederick Community College Frederick, MD Public · 2-year | $38,977 | 31 † | $6,775 | $9,465 | — |
| 20 | Antelope Valley Community College District Lancaster, CA Public · 4-year | $38,575 | 132 | $14,000 | $3,860 | — |
| 21 | Mt San Jacinto Community College District San Jacinto, CA Public · 2-year | $36,114 | 65 | — | $6,806 | — |
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 Social Sciences (CIP 4501, 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 21.
- 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 Social 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 | $45,880 | 12 | Ohlone College |
| Virginia | $42,697 | 3 | Northern Virginia Community College |
Related majors
Other fields to compare, by what graduates earn.
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Veterinary Technology (Associate)
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Culinary Arts (Associate)
$39,605 national median · 44 schools
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