2022 Best Value Associate Degree Colleges for Mechanical Engineering

When pursuing a degree in today’s world, students have many different options to choose from. College Factual has developed its “Best Value ME Schools for an Associate” ranking as one item you can use to help make this decision.

Mechanical Engineering is the 20th most popular major in the country with 47,598 degrees awarded in 2019-2020. In 2017-2018, mechanical engineering graduates who were awarded their degree in 2015-2017, earned an average of $64,495 and had an average of $23,104 in loans still to pay off.

At the associate degree level specifically, there were 318 mechanical engineering graduates with average earnings and debt of $33,082 and $17,678 respectively.

The schools that top this list are recognized because they have great mechanical engineering programs and cost less that schools of similar quality.

To come up with these rankings, we looked at factors such as the cost to attend the school after aid is awarded and overall quality of the mechanical engineering program at the school. Check out our ranking methodology for more information.

One Size Does Not Fit All

When choosing the right school for you, it’s important to arm yourself with all the facts you can. To that end, we’ve created a number of major-specific rankings, including this “Best Value ME Schools for an Associate” list to help you make the college decision.

You can create your own custom comparison that focuses on the factors most important to you using our tool, College Combat. When you have some time, check it out - you may want to bookmark the link so you don’t forget it.

Best Value ME Schools for an Associate

The following schools top our list of the Best Best Value ME Schools for an Associate.

Top 1 Best Value Associate Degree Colleges for Mechanical Engineering

#1

Saint Francis University

Loretto, Pennsylvania

#1 in overall quality

$28,643 Average Net Price

You’ll be in good company if you decide to attend Saint Francis University. It ranked #1 on our 2022 Best Value ME Schools for an Associate list. Saint Francis University is located in Loretto, Pennsylvania and, has a small student population. In 2019-2020, this school awarded 4 associates’s ME degrees to qualified students.

Saint Francis did well in our major quality rankings, too. It placed #1 on our “Best Mechanical Engineering Associate Degree Schools” list. The estimated yearly cost for Saint Francis University is $28,643 for Associate Degree ME students.

The low student loan default rate of 2.3% is a good sign that students have an easier time paying off their loans than they might at other schools. For comparison, the national default rate is 10.1%. Students who start out at the school are likely to stick around. The freshman retention rate is 96%.

Read more about Mechanical Engineering at Saint Francis University

Notes and References

References

• 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 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).
• Information about the national average student loan default rate is from the U.S. Department of Education and refers to data about the 2016 borrower cohort tracking period for which the cohort default rate (CDR) was 10.1%.

Read more about our data sources and methodologies

Footnotes

• *Average salary, average net price, and average tuition and fees are for the top schools only.
• Some schools otherwise deserving of recognition may have been removed from this ranking in the event that new data identified post-publication warranted it, or at the request of the school.

Credits

• Credit for the banner image above goes to Michel Villeneuve.

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