The 10 Highest-Paying Jobs You Can Enter With an Associate Degree

How this ranking is built

1. Candidate pool. Occupations that the BLS lists with an associate degree as the typical entry education, taken from the BLS summary of occupations requiring less than a bachelor's degree.
2. Pay. The May 2025 median hourly wage from the BLS OEWS survey, annualized at 2,080 hours. BLS reports some annual medians directly, and they can differ from this figure by a few dollars because of rounding.
3. Order. Highest annual median first. Growth is shown for reference and does not change the order.
4. No paid placement. No employer, school, or certification body can buy a place on this list.

What the numbers do not show

Median pay is the midpoint of all workers in a job, including people with decades of experience. Starting pay is usually lower, and pay varies by state and metro area. Growth is a national projection of employment change, not a count of openings, which also come from people leaving the field.

Two rows need extra care. The MRI technologist growth rate is taken from the BLS page that covers radiologic and MRI technologists together, which has no separate MRI page. The radiologic technologist growth rate comes from the same combined page. Check the BLS page before you rely on either number.

Air traffic controllers are hired through the Federal Aviation Administration, which sets its own requirements, including age limits and an academy course. An associate degree is one typical entry route, not a guarantee of hire.

Read next

• What associate degree graduates actually earn, and how pay grows.
• Career paths after an associate degree in high-paying fields.
• The credentials that raise pay in each field.
• Where associate degree jobs are hiring through 2035.
• How to compare student debt with starting pay.