Accounting is of the hottest associate degree programs in the United States, coming in as the #13 most popular major in the country. This makes choosing the right school a hard decision.
For its 2024 ranking, College Factual looked at 3 schools in Colorado to determine which ones were the best for accounting students pursuing a associate degree. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 300 associate degrees in accounting during the 2020-2021 academic year.
Choosing a Great Accounting School for Your Associate Degree
The accounting associate degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. This section explores some of the factors we include in our ranking and how much they vary depending on the school you select. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
Quality Overall Is Important
The overall quality of a associate degree school is important to ensure a quality education, not just how well they do in a particular major. To make it into this list a school must rank well in our overall Best Colleges ranking. This ranking considered factors such as graduation rates, overall graduate earnings and other educational resources to identify great colleges and universities.
Average Earnings
One measure we use to determine the quality of a school is to look at the average salary of associate graduates during the early years of their career. This is because one of the main reasons people pursue their associate degree is to enable themselves to find better-paying positions.
Other Factors We Consider
In addition to the above, you should consider some of the following factors:
Major Focus - How many resources a school devotes to accounting students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - The number of accounting students who choose to seek a associate degree at the school.
Educational Resources - The amount of money and other resources allocated to students while they are pursuing their degree. These resources include such things as number of students per instructor and education expenditures per student.
Student Debt - How much debt accounting students go into to obtain their associate degree and how well they are able to pay back that debt.
Accreditation - Whether a school is regionally accredited and/or accredited by a recognized accounting related body.
Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for accounting students working on their associate degree.
Since picking the right college can be one of the most important decisions of your life, we've developed the Best Accounting Associate Degree Schools in Colorado ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.
Best Schools for Associate Students to Study Accounting in Colorado
Explore the top ranked colleges and universities for accounting students seeking a an associate degree.
Top Colorado Schools for an Associate in Accounting
Colorado Technical University - Colorado Springs is one of the finest schools in the United States for getting an associate degree in accounting. Located in the city of Colorado Springs, Colorado Technical University - Colorado Springs is a private for-profit university with a very large student population.
Students who graduate with their associate from the accounting program report average early career wages of $26,913.
It is hard to beat Pikes Peak Community College if you want to pursue an associate degree in accounting. Located in the suburb of Colorado Springs, PPCC is a public college with a large student population.
Associate recipients from the accounting major at Pikes Peak Community College get $2,790 above the average college graduate in this field when they enter the workforce.
Front Range Community College is one of the best schools in the country for getting an associate degree in accounting. Located in the suburb of Westminster, FRCC is a public college with a fairly large student population.
Those accounting students who get their associate degree from Front Range Community College receive $7,193 more than the average accounting graduate.
The bars on the spread charts above show the distribution of the schools on this list +/- one standard deviation from the mean.
The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), a branch of the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) serves as the core of the rest of our data about colleges.
Some other college data, including much of the graduate earnings data, comes from the U.S. Department of Education’s (College Scorecard).
college factual
The accounting associate degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. This section explores some of the factors we include in our ranking and how much they vary depending on the school you select. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
