Human Services is of the hottest associate degree programs in the United States, coming in as the #31 most popular major in the country. This makes choosing the right school a hard decision.
For its 2024 ranking, College Factual looked at 2 schools in South Dakota to determine which ones were the best for human services students pursuing a associate degree. Combined, these schools handed out 32 associate degrees in human services to qualified students.
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
The metrics below are just some of the other metrics that we use to determine our rankings.
Major Focus - How many resources a school devotes to human services students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - The number of human services students who choose to seek a associate degree at the school.
Educational Resources - How many resources are allocated to students. These resources may include educational expenditures per student, number of students per instructor, and graduation rate among other things.
Student Debt - How much debt human services 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 human services related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for human services students working on their associate degree.
The human services school you choose to invest your time and money in matters. To help you make the decision that is right for you, we've developed a number of major-specific rankings, including this list of the Best Human Services Associate Degree Schools in South Dakota.
Best Schools for Associate Students to Study Human Services in South Dakota
The following list ranks the best colleges and universities for pursuing an associate degree in human services.
Top South Dakota Schools for an Associate in Human Services
Every student who is interested in an associate degree in human services has to check out Lake Area Technical Institute. Located in the remote town of Watertown, LATI is a public school with a small student population.
Soon after graduation, human services associate recipients usually earn about $22,590 at the beginning of their careers.
Mitchell Technical College is one of the best schools in the United States for getting an associate degree in human services. Mitchell Tech is a small public college located in the rural area of Mitchell.
Human Services associate degree recipients from Mitchell Technical College receive an earnings boost of around $4,551 above the average income of human services graduates.
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).