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 | Oregon Coast Community College (OR)* | 13181 | 37651 | 35% |
| 2 | Bay Area Medical Academy (CA)° | 7649 | 36253 | 21% |
| 3 | Des Moines Area Community College (IA)* | 9370 | 35933 | 26% |
| 4 | Spokane Community College (WA)* | 14578 | 34421 | 42% |
| 5 | Century College (MN)* | 15954 | 34196 | 47% |
| 6 | Central Oregon Community College (OR)* | 18762 | 33930 | 55% |
| 7 | Wenatchee Valley College (WA)* | 14463 | 33435 | 43% |
| 8 | Pioneer Pacific College (OR)° | 14000 | 32637 | 43% |
| 9 | Panola College (TX)* | 11850 | 32546 | 36% |
| 10 | Front Range Community College (CO)* | 9633 | 32292 | 30% |
| WORST | ||||
| 10 | South Louisiana Community College (LA)* | 7418 | 18313 | 41% |
| 9 | Blue Cliff College (LA)° | 10622 | 18251 | 58% |
| 8 | Baton Rouge Community College (LA)* | 10915 | 17978 | 61% |
| 7 | South Texas Training Center (TX)° | 4690 | 17012 | 28% |
| 6 | Garden State Science & Technology Institute (NJ)° | 6973 | 16955 | 41% |
| 5 | Greenville Technical College (SC)* | 11553 | 16624 | 69% |
| 4 | Rio Grande Valley College (TX)° | 7965 | 15977 | 50% |
| 3 | Columbiana County Career & Technical Center (OH)* | 4252 | 15449 | 28% |
| 2 | Associated Technical College–Los Angeles (CA)° | 8507 | 15148 | 56% |
| 1 | South Florida Institute of Technology (FL)° | 2881 | 14816 | 19% |