“I can think of nine magazines off the top of my head who every year will rank the top colleges. None of them ever include a trade school.”
And so began a scathing critique of college rankings and the country’s attitude toward higher education by Mike Rowe, the Dirty Jobs and Somebody’s Gotta Do It television personality and social activist. As part of an interview with ATTN:, Rowe spoke about the benefits of choosing trade schools over academia, from affordable tuition to the availability of jobs in the field.
He has a point.
The Forbes Top Colleges rankings includes over 650 four-year U.S. colleges and universities. We measure return on investment, giving colleges credit for low student debt, high graduation rates and alumni with enviable career success and salaries. This is all based on a single premise: An undergraduate education matters.
And the overall numbers bear this out. For example, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the difference in median weekly earnings between workers with a bachelor’s degree ($1,156) and those with an associate’s degree ($819) was over 41% in 2016. The average salary for trade school graduates eight years into their careers was about $23,400, whereas the national average for college graduates is $33,500, according to the Department of Education’s College Scorecard, which tracks recipients of financial aid.
But just as with four-year colleges, not all trade schools are equal. Because of a confluence of factors – ranging from area of study to workforce needs to close-knit learning environments – some trade schools are even better options than their bachelor’s-bequeathing counterparts.
For the first time, Forbes has put together a comprehensive ranking of two-year trade schools. Using the same “return on investment” focus as our annual Top Colleges report, this list of 30 looks at three critical data points: earnings, affordability and quality. Full methodology can be found here.