 The associates degree tier list for 2023. In this video, we are going to be ranking different associate majors from S tier, which is the best to F tier, which is the worst. So I've been in the kitchen cooking this up for you. I've been working really hard on this year's list, and I have no doubt that it is going to be the best list I have ever made. So I always talk about the two most important things, which are salary and demand. And then I also get into other things like job satisfaction, meaning, et cetera. But on this year's list, I changed something that I thought was extremely important. So basically there's a lot of careers out there that have good demand, but they don't necessarily have a lot of demand at the entry level. So in this year's list, I focused on the degrees that lead to careers that have a lot of demand at the entry level, right? Because we've all seen those job postings that are entry level jobs that require, you know, three to five years of experience. So if you appreciate all my hard work on this year's list, go ahead and swoosh that like button like a Steph Curry 3 pointer. And let's go ahead and get into it. Alright, so first one we're going to talk about is of course, art degrees. Okay, so art degrees at the associate level. Now, I typically do not recommend getting an art degree for anybody except for a very small percentage of people, like probably 0.1%. You know, if you're in the top 99.9th percentile as a guitarist, for instance, okay, maybe you should go to Juilliard and get trained by world-renowned classical guitarists. But it is such a small percentage of people that I recommend art degrees to. However, if you are going to get an art degree, if you have your heart set on it and you're absolutely going to get an art degree, an associate's degree is probably the way to go. Again, I highly recommend not doing it. I think you can learn much more by just putting yourself in an environment with other artists that do whatever your preferred art is, and then just collaborate with them, work with them, share your ideas. You can learn a lot more from doing that in my opinion. And I always talk about this. I recommend the book, Steal Like an Artist. It has nothing to do with stealing like an artist. It's just a clickbait title. Really, really good book. If you're an artistic type of person, you want to learn how to make money with art. Spoiler alert, it does not involve going to college. Now, with that being said, I'm going to go ahead and pick out one. It's multimedia and web design. With this one, you'd expect to make about $40,000 a year starting out and $65,000 in mid-career pay. And the meaning score is about 37%. We can do another one like video editor, for instance, if you type that in on Glassdoor, you're going to see they make about $55,000 a year. If you type in just artist in general, you're going to see they make around $46,000 a year. And if you type in artist on LinkedIn at the entry level, you're going to see 29,000 results. Now, interestingly enough, the skill of art is actually on the rise. For instance, a lot of ad platforms are moving towards being more creative focused. And by that, I mean they're much more focused on the actual art behind the ads, because it's getting easier and easier to do the analytical part of things. So there is hope for artists out there. You definitely can make money from art. There's a lot of great careers out there like web design, UX, UI design, etc. But I typically do not recommend going to college in order to get a job in art. And I definitely don't recommend going to college in order to start your own business in art. So overall, I'm going to put this one into D tier. Next on the list is going to be communications degrees at the associate level. All right. So this one, you're going to make about $33,000 a year starting out and $56,000 in mid-career pay, and it has a meaning score of 50%. Now, if you type in mass communications on Glassdoor, you're going to see the average salary is about $64,000 a year. And if you type in mass communications on LinkedIn at the entry level, you'll see about 2,400 results. So yeah, again, this is one of those typically don't recommend communications degrees to most people. This one is going to go into D tier. Next one on the list is education degrees at the associate level. So this one you'd start off making $30,000 a year and mid-career pay is $45,000. The meaning score is a little bit higher at 60%. So if you look on Glassdoor and you type in teacher, you're going to see they make about $45,000 a year. And if you go on LinkedIn, type in teacher at the entry level, you're going to see about 22,000 results. So this is of course an incredibly important career in society. But with that being said, I can't just give it a better rating because of that reason, right? Like I have to stick with the numbers and be objective and fair here at the associate level. It's okay. You know, you can get certain positions at that level. I'm going to go ahead and put this one into C tier. My recommendation for somebody who does want to become a teacher, like you have your heart set on becoming a teacher, is to go to a school like WGU because you can actually get a bachelor's degree in education relatively quickly, like within a year or two. And just check out my videos on WGU if you are confused about what I'm talking about. Next one on the list is going to be engineering degrees at the associate level. Now, these are actually really good. So there are a bunch of like random technician related careers out there where you need to have a good amount of, you know, academic knowledge, but not quite as much as you need for like a bachelor's degree. So an example of one of those careers would be instrumentation and control engineering. This is an associate level degree and you'd start off making $54,000 a year and mid career pay is $85,000. And if you type in engineering technician on Glassdoor, you're going to see they make about $55,000 a year. And if you type in engineering technician on LinkedIn, you're going to see 44,000 results at the entry level. So yeah, engineering degrees are pretty much good at every single level. And there's a reason you see so many millionaires and billionaires having engineering degrees. It teaches you practical real world problem solving skills. So yeah, this one definitely goes into S tier. Next one on the list is health degrees. These are also incredibly good at every single level. Now, one thing that's great about health degrees and also engineering degrees is much of the time you actually have to get the degree in order to get into certain careers, right? So with something like technology, for instance, the degree is optional for many careers. Now, do eight, you know, hiring managers prefer a degree in many cases? Yes, there are many cases where hiring managers will prefer a degree, but it's still optional. You don't have to get it. When it comes to health degrees and engineering degrees, you pretty much have to have the degree. So that creates what's known as a barrier to entry to everyone else. They have to go through that gauntlet in order to get into the career, which is good, because that means when you're thinking about supply and demand, you have a competitive advantage there. Now, one associate health related degree would be radiation therapy. They make $65,000 a year starting out in $95,000 in mid-career pay, and it has a whopping 92% when it comes to meaning score. And this is another thing that I'd like to mention is health degrees and health careers do tend to have very high meaning scores, and meaning does tend to correlate with happiness over the long run, right? So the two big things you want to pay attention to when it comes to how satisfied you are with your job is, of course, job satisfaction, you know, how well do companies treat you, for instance, and then meaning. And meaning is basically how much you think your job positively impacts the world. And both of those things are very important when it comes to your overall happiness with your job. Now, when you look up radiation therapists on Glassdoor, you're going to see they make about $97,000 a year. And when you look up radiation therapists on LinkedIn at the entry level, you're going to see 5,800 results. And there's honestly like probably thousands of these little random niche health degree and health careers out there. So you do want to make sure you do your research for these. Some of them require an associate's degree. Some of them require some level of like certification that might take you one to three years to get into. But yeah, definitely do your research. These random little niche health careers can be really good. This one absolutely goes into S tier health degrees are good at every single level associate bachelor masters and doctorate. Next one on the list is going to be language related degrees at the associate level. So this one is surprisingly okay when it comes to the statistics. So you start off at $32,000 a year with something like Spanish, for instance, mid career pay is $47,000 and meaning score is 62%. And if you get into a career like translator, for instance, you'd expect to make about $50,000 a year. And if you type in translator on LinkedIn at the entry level, you're going to see about 14,000 results. Now you technically don't even need a degree to become a translator. It's really just all about your skill. But with that being said, getting an associate level degree does seem to help a little bit with that. But still, you know, it's not amazing. The numbers aren't incredible. I'm going to go ahead and put this one into D tier. Next on the list is going to be a liberal arts degree at the associate level. So an example of this one would be one of my favorite subjects. If not my favorite subject, which is history. If you look at history at the associate level, you're going to see $34,000 a year starting out 58,000 mid career pay and a 40% meaning score. One career path you might go down and I say might because you know, history degrees don't have a lot of career paths. You can go down. Let's be honest is a paralegal and paralegals make about $51,000 a year according to Glassdoor. And if you look up paralegal on LinkedIn at the entry level, you're going to see about 26,000 results. The only problem with this is you can go into that paralegal career path with a bunch of different degrees, right? You don't have to get a history degree to go down that path. You could get any number of different liberal arts degrees or non liberal arts degrees. So yeah, liberal arts, I'm going to have to put this one into F tier. Next one on the list is going to be associate level math degrees. So with this one, you'd expect to make $39,000 a year starting out $69,000 in mid career pay and 51% meaning score. One career path you might go down is becoming an accounting assistant and they make about $40,000 a year. And if you look up accounting assistant on LinkedIn, you're going to see about 20,000 results at the entry level. So yeah, math is a pretty valuable skill. A lot of people can't do math. A lot of people are math phobic. They're afraid of it. So if you are somebody who is good at math, it might make sense for you to get a degree in mathematics. So get off your athletes, do some math, math, math, math, math, math. But it isn't necessarily that applicable to the real world in the same way that an engineering degree is. So overall, I'm going to put math degrees in C tier. Next on the list is going to be science degrees at the associate level. So an example of this one would be a chemistry degree and they make 35,000 starting out and 64,000 in mid career pay and the meaning score is 54%, which is pretty good. Now with this degree, you could become a laboratory technician and they make about $42,000 a year. And if you look up laboratory technician on LinkedIn at the entry level, you're going to see 29,000 results. So I actually think science degrees at the associate level are a little bit better than science degrees at the bachelor's level in many cases, especially when you talk about a degree like biology. And the reason for that is because a lot of those laboratory technician jobs, you actually don't need a bachelor's degree to get you can get into them with just an associate's degree and the bachelor's degree doesn't actually help you out all that much. There's tons of people who graduate with biology bachelor degrees and they can't find a job or if they do find a job, it's not a good one. When it comes to science, a lot of the really good jobs are going to require at least a master's and in many cases, a doctor. So overall, I'm going to put this one into C tier. Next one on the list is going to be psychology degrees. So psychology degrees at the associate level, you're going to start off $33,000 a year mid career pace, 51,000 and meaning score is 55%. Now again, not that many jobs for psychologists at the associate level. One thing you might do is paralegal like I mentioned already before, they're not going to let you help somebody with their mental health, which is an incredibly complicated thing with just an associate's level degree that would make zero sense. So this one goes into F tier. Next one on the list is social science degrees in general. And this kind of falls under the same category. So let's do an example like anthropologists, for instance, you know, they make $52,000 a year. And if you type in anthropologist on LinkedIn at the entry level, you're going to see 865 results. But here's the big problem. You can't become an anthropologist with an associate's degree. You can't become an anthropologist with a bachelor's degree. You probably can't become an anthropologist with a master's degree. You're very likely going to have to get a PhD and there's only 856 jobs available. Well, this is going to hurt like a mother. So, you know, this, this one's really tough, especially at the associate level, you know, it's just not going to be a good one. So social science degrees at the associate level go into F tier. Next on the list is going to be business degrees. So at the associate level, you'd expect to make 50,000 starting out 85,000 mid career pay and 52% meaning score. Now I actually have a close friend who graduated with an associate level business degree. And he started off working at a manager in a store. And I believe he started as an associate manager, then he worked his way up to manager, then he transferred over to another store became a manager. And then he finally transferred to a company that's really good and became a manager at that company. And now he makes super, super good money, all with just an associate level business degree. So business degrees are actually pretty good at the associate level. So for instance, if you became a store manager, you'd expect to make about $51,000 a year. And if you type in manager on LinkedIn at the entry level, you're going to see one million results. So there's lots and lots of demand for people who have management skills. Now with business degrees, there's always that question of whether it's correlation or causation. And by that, I mean, are the types of people who would probably make more money no matter what degree they got, the types of people that tend to go for business degrees, because people who tend to go for business degrees are probably more likely to be interested in making money, interested in becoming managers, maybe even interested in starting their own businesses. So there's always that question of correlation or causation. And that's very difficult to actually determine. Now that being said, you can get into project management without a degree. But I think an associate's degree is going to give you a little bit of a boost there. Now if you're somebody who basically wants to get into a career as fast as possible and start making money as fast as possible, you don't want to have to go to college. You don't want to have to have a bunch of previous experience. You just want to get into a career where you can make money really quickly. I highly recommend looking into tech sales. So I've interviewed a bunch of different people on this channel who have gotten into tech sales and they make really good money right off the bat. So for instance, Della went through the whole college process. She bounced around to a bunch of different colleges. She had a really bad experience overall, but then she discovered tech sales while she was still in college and she was actually just a stay at home mom taking college classes. And she decided to take the plunge, try to get into tech sales, and she was able to actually get in within a month and a half with over $100,000 year salary at her dream company. And if you want to know how she did it, I'll go ahead and put the free training down in the description as well as the pinned comment below. And if you choose to use their advanced plan where they'll give you training, they'll put you into a community of a bunch of other people who are also trying to get into tech sales. And on top of that, they will get you guaranteed interviews with their partner companies, then use my code down in the description below, which is Shane $50 for $50 off. So overall business degrees at the associates level, I'll put this one into a tier. And speaking of technology degrees, that's the next one on the list, technology degrees at the associate level are also very good. So for instance, computer science and mathematics is the number one degree at the associate level. Of course, $45,000 a year starting out, 106,000 in mid career pay, and a 49% meaning score. One career path you might go down is becoming a web developer. They make about $70,000 a year. And if you type in web developer on LinkedIn at the entry level, you will see 24,000 results. This one absolutely goes into S tier. So yeah, like I said before, check out that interview with Della. Highly, highly recommend that. I'll put that right here.