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 | Madison Area Technical College (WI)* | 15293 | 54373 | 28% |
| 2 | Dakota County Technical College (MN)* | 8295 | 49357 | 17% |
| 3 | Motoring Technical Training Institute (MA)° | 7993 | 41695 | 19% |
| 4 | National Career Education (CA)° | 8430 | 41306 | 20% |
| 5 | Porter and Chester Institute of Stratford (CT)° | 12250 | 41210 | 30% |
| 6 | YTI Career Institute–York (PA)° | 8899 | 40757 | 22% |
| 7 | Minnesota State Community & Technical College (MN)* | 8044 | 40602 | 20% |
| 8 | Pinnacle Career Institute–South Kansas City (MO)° | 12381 | 40598 | 30% |
| 9 | Metropolitan Community College–Kansas City (MO)* | 8622 | 40568 | 21% |
| 10 | Interactive College of Technology (KY)° | 10247 | 40539 | 25% |
| WORST | ||||
| 10 | Stautzenberger College–Maumee (OH)° | 11241 | 27767 | 40% |
| 9 | Advanced Technology Institute (VA)° | 15553 | 27767 | 56% |
| 8 | Fortis Institute (FL)° | 11489 | 27105 | 42% |
| 7 | Florida Career College (FL)° | 8862 | 27064 | 33% |
| 6 | Houston Community College (TX)* | 15265 | 26743 | 57% |
| 5 | All-State Career School (PA)° | 12228 | 26671 | 46% |
| 4 | Fortis College (AL)° | 11461 | 25631 | 45% |
| 3 | Central Georgia Technical College (GA)* | 7423 | 24954 | 30% |
| 2 | Hazard Community and Technical College (KY)* | 14346 | 22654 | 63% |
| 1 | Eastern Florida State College (FL)* | 9896 | 22416 | 44% |