Texas Trade Schools: Cost, Completion & Earnings (2026 stats)

Analysis & insights

EDsmart Data aggregates institution-level College Scorecard data for this profile. Highlights below compare local medians to U.S. and regional benchmarks.

Costs & borrowing

Median graduate debt is $9,500 (-2.0% below the U.S. median of $9,699, and -2.5% vs the Southwest regional median of $9,746). Low sticker prices do not always mean low borrowing—living costs, time-to-degree, and aid mix matter.

Student debt rank: #23 nationally of 52 (lower debt = better rank); #2 in Southwest of 4 (1 = lowest median debt).

Earnings, employment & retention

Among bachelor's-predominant campuses with ≥200 students, median 10-year earnings in Texas are $33,193, about -5.1% vs the U.S. campus median ($34,984).

The median campus reports 82.6% of its 8-year cohort as working and not enrolled—our closest federal proxy to a placement rate. The U.S. campus median is 80.9% (+1.6 pp). Formal job-placement statistics are not published in Scorecard; treat this as a comparative outcome indicator, not a hire guarantee.

First-year, full-time retention at the median campus is 66.5% vs a U.S. median of 64.9%—a leading indicator for completion and time-to-degree.

Loan repayment indicators at the median campus: 2-yr default 13.6% (U.S. 11.1%); 3-yr repayment progress 43.7% (U.S. 50.5%). 3-yr default is omitted when most campuses report suppressed zeros.

Nationally, Texas ranks earnings #34 and employment proxy #20 on these outcome medians (1 = best).

Top employment-outcome campuses in this extract include Covenant School of Nursing and Allied Health (94.7%), Galen Health Institutes-Dallas (89.7%), Blinn College District (89.0%), Concorde Career College-Grand Prairie (88.9%), PCI Health Training Center (88.8%), Texas Southmost College (88.6%), Milan Institute-Amarillo (87.3%), Western Texas College (87.3%), South Texas Training Center (87.1%), Victoria College (86.8%)—useful anchors for local reporting on where graduates are most often working rather than still enrolled.

Completion & workforce context

Within Texas, sector medians diverge: Private for-profit median 10-yr earnings $29,359 (140 campuses); Private nonprofit median 10-yr earnings $31,349 (9 campuses); Public median 10-yr earnings $39,163 (58 campuses). Public campuses often dominate enrollment while private nonprofits can show higher earnings medians at selective institutions.

Average institution-level completion rate across all sectors in Texas is 67.5% (national institution average about 63.3%).