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 percentage of annual earnings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| BEST | ||||
| 1 | McLennan Community College (TX)* | 14581 | 77234 | 19% |
| 2 | Ferris State University (MI)* | 28634 | 60924 | 47% |
| 3 | Eastern Iowa Community College District (IA)* | 14932 | 45464 | 33% |
| 4 | Madison Area Technical College (WI)* | 15906 | 41102 | 39% |
| 5 | Santa Barbara City College (CA)* | 18374 | 40140 | 46% |
| 6 | Millennium Training Institute (MA)° | 6975 | 39238 | 18% |
| 7 | Gwinnett Technical College (GA)* | 10411 | 38481 | 27% |
| 8 | Northeast Iowa Community College (IA)* | 20625 | 36177 | 57% |
| 9 | Rochester Community and Technical College (MN)* | 15099 | 35546 | 42% |
| 10 | Anoka Technical College (MN)* | 12694 | 35382 | 36% |
| WORST | ||||
| 10 | Ultimate Medical Academy (FL) | 8855 | 18577 | 48% |
| 9 | Unitech Training Academy (LA)° | 10499 | 18379 | 57% |
| 8 | Technical Learning Centers Inc (DC)° | 8598 | 17929 | 48% |
| 7 | American National University-Pikeville (KY)° | 17711 | 17612 | 101% |
| 6 | Career Technical Institute (DC)° | 8881 | 17374 | 51% |
| 5 | Concorde Career College-Grand Prairie (TX)° | 9485 | 16489 | 58% |
| 4 | Learning Bridge Career Institute (LA)° | 7776 | 16475 | 47% |
| 3 | Diversified Vocational College (CA)° | 8181 | 16364 | 50% |
| 2 | Fortis College-Foley (AL)° | 10424 | 15583 | 67% |
| 1 | Trident University International (CA)° | 4332 | 12575 | 34% |