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 | Quinsigamond Community College (MA)* | 18660 | 59460 | 31% |
| 2 | Shawsheen Valley School of Practical Nursing (MA)* | 7374 | 57194 | 13% |
| 3 | Eastern Center for Arts & Technology (PA)* | 10006 | 55673 | 18% |
| 4 | Blake Austin College (CA)° | 16197 | 53553 | 30% |
| 5 | North Shore Community College (MA)* | 9044 | 53489 | 17% |
| 6 | Detroit Business Institute–Downriver (MI)° | 11766 | 53457 | 22% |
| 7 | Harmony Health Care Institute (NH)° | 10439 | 53113 | 20% |
| 8 | Unitek College (CA)° | 13523 | 52224 | 26% |
| 9 | Western Suffolk BOCES (NY)* | 11015 | 51970 | 21% |
| 10 | Eastwick College–Hackensack (NJ)° | 19486 | 51572 | 38% |
| WORST | ||||
| 10 | Florida Career College (FL)° | 9095 | 19507 | 47% |
| 9 | Southern Technical College (FL)° | 9991 | 18771 | 53% |
| 8 | Florida Vocational Institute (FL)° | 5650 | 18446 | 31% |
| 7 | Abcott Institute (MI)° | 5808 | 18085 | 32% |
| 6 | West Virginia Northern Community College (WV)* | 7920 | 17810 | 44% |
| 5 | McHenry County College (IL)* | 5468 | 17711 | 31% |
| 4 | University of Arkansas–Monticello (AR)* | 10546 | 17001 | 62% |
| 3 | International Training Careers (FL) | 7530 | 16997 | 44% |
| 2 | Southwest Wisconsin Technical College (WI)* | 5412 | 16618 | 33% |
| 1 | Southwestern Illinois College (IL)* | 4013 | 15947 | 25% |