The Washington Monthly is the first and only publication to rank America’s best colleges for vocational certificates. To build the rankings, we pulled numbers for the ten most common undergraduate certificate programs from the U.S. Department of Education’s College Scorecard dataset. For each program, we rank colleges according to the median earnings of their students one year after graduation. For informational purposes, we also show the median federal student loan debt and a debt-to-earnings ratio.
Click here for a more detailed explanation, here for all of our other rankings, and here to download the full vocational certificate data set.
| Rank | Name | Median debt of graduates | Median annual earnings | Total debt as a % of annual earnings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| BEST | ||||
| 1 | Cabrillo College (CA)* | 16269 | 74152 | 22% |
| 2 | Sinclair Community College (OH)* | 5860 | 41612 | 14% |
| 3 | Spokane Community College (WA)* | 9035 | 37739 | 24% |
| 4 | Florence-Darlington Technical College (SC)* | 14290 | 37086 | 39% |
| 5 | Herzing University (MN) | 18500 | 36247 | 51% |
| 6 | Wake Technical Community College (NC)* | 13922 | 35788 | 39% |
| 7 | AmeriTech College-Draper (UT)° | 12540 | 35299 | 36% |
| 8 | Central Oregon Community College (OR)* | 10206 | 35090 | 29% |
| 9 | Portland Community College (OR)* | 10847 | 34168 | 32% |
| 10 | NHTI-Concord's Community College (NH)* | 11132 | 33556 | 33% |
| WORST | ||||
| 10 | Pearl River Community College (MS)* | 8516 | 20208 | 42% |
| 9 | Eastland-Fairfield Career & Technical Schools (OH)* | 6278 | 19776 | 32% |
| 8 | Vista College (TX)° | 12907 | 19248 | 67% |
| 7 | Lamar State College–Orange (TX)* | 6747 | 19223 | 35% |
| 6 | Milan Institute (TX)° | 7508 | 18801 | 40% |
| 5 | Florida National University–Main (FL)° | 9525 | 18788 | 51% |
| 4 | Eastern College of Health Vocations (LA)° | 3968 | 18621 | 21% |
| 3 | Delta College of Arts & Technology (LA)° | 5400 | 16997 | 32% |
| 2 | South Texas Vocational Technical Institute (TX)° | 9723 | 15887 | 61% |
| 1 | UEI College (CA)° | 8600 | 15458 | 56% |
