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 | Red Rocks Community College (CO)* | 9042 | 87754 | 10% |
| 2 | Loma Linda University (CA) | 20436 | 85779 | 24% |
| 3 | College of Eastern Idaho (ID)* | 7203 | 82847 | 9% |
| 4 | Cabrillo College (CA)* | 17394 | 73895 | 24% |
| 5 | Dallas College (TX)* | 14602 | 72895 | 20% |
| 6 | Center for Allied Health Education (NY)° | 14341 | 67832 | 21% |
| 7 | Western Suffolk BOCES (NY)* | 13962 | 66649 | 21% |
| 8 | Hudson Valley Community College (NY)* | 9475 | 65544 | 14% |
| 9 | Prince George's Community College (MD)* | 8331 | 65182 | 13% |
| 10 | Mayo Clinic College of Medicine & Science (MN) | 14811 | 64250 | 23% |
| WORST | ||||
| 10 | College of Health Care Professions (TX)° | 14389 | 26112 | 55% |
| 9 | All-State Career School (PA)° | 6153 | 25102 | 25% |
| 8 | Cleveland State Community College (TN)* | 9858 | 24569 | 40% |
| 7 | High Desert Medical College (CA)° | 21058 | 24182 | 87% |
| 6 | Florida Career College (FL)° | 8929 | 23528 | 38% |
| 5 | Ultimate Medical Academy (FL) | 9172 | 23006 | 40% |
| 4 | ATA Career Education (FL)° | 15532 | 22983 | 68% |
| 3 | ATA College (KY)° | 15532 | 22983 | 68% |
| 2 | American Medical Sciences Center (CA)° | 16323 | 22438 | 73% |
| 1 | Germanna Community College (VA)* | 11818 | 21585 | 55% |