Do A. A. Degrees Matter?

Not the way they are constituted now, a study from the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) concludes. “Because A.A. degrees are designed as transfer credentials and not to equip students with marketable skills, hundreds of thousands of these A.A. graduates are losing thousands of dollars in earnings year after year,” Mark Schneider and Matthew Sigelman assert in the study.

“Every year, around 670,000 students earn associate degrees from community colleges—yet only about 32,000 job postings in 2016 specifically asked for an associate of arts (A.A.) degree,” they show. “Five years after graduation, A.A. degree holders earn on average less than $40,000 per year.”

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