An AA degree, or Associate of Arts, is a two-year undergraduate degree that requires roughly 60 credit hours and focuses on liberal arts and general education coursework. It’s one of the most common degrees awarded by community colleges and serves two main purposes: preparing students to transfer into a four-year bachelor’s program or qualifying them for entry-level jobs in fields like education, communications, and social services.
What You Study in an AA Program
The AA degree is built around general education, the same foundational courses you’d take during your first two years at a four-year university. Expect classes in English composition, mathematics, natural science, social science, and foreign languages. These aren’t filler courses. They’re designed to build broad academic skills like critical thinking, writing, and research that apply across careers and majors.
Beyond the general education core, AA programs typically include several elective courses where you can explore a concentration. Common focus areas include psychology, English, visual arts, history, and education. The heavy general education component is actually a strategic advantage if you plan to transfer: because so much of the curriculum overlaps with what a four-year school requires in the first two years, your credits are more likely to carry over.
How It Differs From an AS or AAS Degree
Community colleges typically offer three types of associate degrees, and the differences matter for your next step. An Associate of Arts (AA) leans toward humanities and social sciences. An Associate of Science (AS) shares the same general education foundation but adds more STEM and business coursework, with concentrations like biology, computer science, engineering, and pre-nursing. The AS curriculum includes classes like chemistry, physics, calculus, and programming fundamentals rather than the broader liberal arts mix.
The third type, an Associate of Applied Science (AAS), is the most career-focused. It’s designed to get you into a specific job, like dental hygiene or network administration, right after graduation. The trade-off is that AAS credits are often harder to transfer to a four-year school because some of them count as “workforce credits” that not all universities accept. If transferring to a bachelor’s program is your goal, the AA or AS is the safer bet.
Transferring to a Four-Year University
The most common reason students earn an AA is to complete their first two years affordably, then transfer to a university to finish a bachelor’s degree. This path, sometimes called a 2+2 program, works well when you plan ahead.
The key tool is an articulation agreement, which is an official guarantee between two schools that specific courses completed at one institution will count toward a degree at the other. These agreements map individual community college classes to their university equivalents, so you don’t lose credit when you transfer. Many community colleges maintain agreements with multiple universities, and you can usually find the list in the school’s course catalog or on its transfer resources page.
Planning matters more than most students realize. If you complete a general liberal arts AA but then decide to major in engineering at a four-year school, you may find that few of your credits apply to that program’s requirements. The best approach is to talk to an advisor at your community college early, ideally in your first semester, and be specific about which university and major you’re targeting. They can help you choose courses that align with your intended bachelor’s program so you don’t end up retaking classes you’ve already paid for.
What It Costs
Cost savings are the biggest practical argument for starting with an AA. In 2025-26, average published tuition and fees at a public two-year college run about $4,150 per year for in-district students. At a public four-year university, that figure jumps to $11,950 per year for in-state students. Over two years, that’s a difference of roughly $15,600 in sticker price alone.
The real numbers can be even more favorable. On average, first-time full-time students at public two-year colleges have been receiving enough grant aid to cover their entire tuition and fees since 2009-10. That means many students complete an AA without paying tuition out of pocket, then transfer to a university for just the final two years of a bachelor’s degree. The diploma you earn at the end looks the same as one earned by a student who spent all four years at the university.
Jobs You Can Get With an AA Degree
While many AA holders use the degree as a stepping stone to a bachelor’s, it qualifies you for a range of entry-level positions on its own. Administrative roles, human resources assistant positions, paralegal jobs (often with additional certification), and some social services positions list an associate degree as the minimum requirement. In education, an AA can qualify you for paraprofessional or teaching assistant roles in many school districts.
Earning potential with only an AA is lower than with a bachelor’s degree, but it’s meaningfully higher than a high school diploma alone. The degree signals to employers that you can manage a structured academic program and have foundational skills in communication, analysis, and problem-solving. For some students, working with an AA while finishing a bachelor’s part-time is the most financially sustainable path to a higher-paying career.
How Long It Takes
The standard timeline is two years of full-time study, which typically means 15 credits per semester across four semesters. Many students take longer because they attend part-time, work while enrolled, or need developmental courses before starting college-level work. Accelerated online programs at some schools compress the timeline to 18 months or less by offering shorter terms and year-round scheduling.
If you’ve taken college courses before, or if your school accepts credit for military training or standardized exams like CLEP, you may be able to finish faster. Because general education courses make up such a large share of the AA curriculum, prior coursework from another institution often transfers in, reducing the total credits you need to complete.