Associate's Degree in Business

An Easy Start Towards a Business Bachelor's Degree or MBA

Sep 20, 2009 John Wu

Although the MBA often overshadows AA and BA degrees in business administration, the associate degree can lead to a new job and career or lead to a BA in Business.

An associate's degree in business has coursework typically found in the first two years of a bachelor's degree program in business administration. The associate business program requires courses such as accounting, economics, and business which are usually required in the BA business program as well. Even if a student completes an AA in business but doesn't continue on, there are employers that will still hire him because he has an AA degree in business.

One strategy for getting a business degree is to take courses that count towards the associate's degree business administration program, get the AA degree, and then continue to take additional courses to complete the BA in business. If job or family responsibilities get in the way of completing the bachelor's degree in business, the student still has earned the AA if he completes two years worth of college.

If a student completes the requirements for both an AA and BA in business, he will have two college degrees, good job prospects, and preparatory coursework necessary to enter a MBA program.

Jobs With Associate's in Business Administration

Those who leave college with a two year degree in business can often find jobs or a new career.

Many government jobs have rigid requirements such as a minimum two year college degree in business. A person with a bachelor's or master's degree in a field other than business would be eliminated from the competition while a candidate with an associate's degree in business administration would move on to the next stage of hiring. Civil service rules are often quite rigid with regards to degree requirements in order to eliminate favoritism and nepotism.

Another job where a person with an associate degree would be useful is an accounting clerk. Many AA business programs require financial and managerial accounting courses, which is also the minimum requirement to a job as an entry level accounting clerk.

Other careers where an associate degree in business would be helpful include administrative assistant, sales, marketing, and other jobs where a business degree is strongly preferred but not required.

Although the job prospects are better with a bachelor's degree in business or a MBA, the associate's degree in business is still useful in gaining an edge while competing for a job.

Where to Get an AA in Business Administration?

The cheapest way to get an AA degree is to attend a community college, which only confer associate's degrees. Nevertheless, community colleges courses often count towards a bachelor's degree. Other schools that offer an associate's degree in business include universities, trade schools, and even online associate degree business programs. Many schools offer both AA and BA degrees in business, which may be advantageous since it avoids possible loss of college credits from transferring between a two year school and a four year school.

Getting an AA in business as a jump start to a bachelor's degree can be very smart. The graduation rate of students in bachelor's degree programs is only 56.1% in 2007 according to the National Center for Higher Education. A student who gets an AA degree in business administration as part of a BA program still has a college degree even if he fails to complete the bachelor's in business. Having an AA degree in business is a lot better than having no degree at all.

References:

US Department of Labor - Bureau of Labor Statistics. "Associate degree: Two Years to a Career or a Jump Start to a Bachelor's Degree."

National Center for Higher Education.

The copyright of the article Associate's Degree in Business in Colleges is owned by John Wu. Permission to republish Associate's Degree in Business in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

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