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 (0.0% below the U.S. median of $9,500, and 0.0% vs the Southwest regional median of $9,500). Low sticker prices do not always mean low borrowing—living costs, time-to-degree, and aid mix matter.

Student debt rank: #18 nationally of 58 (lower debt = better rank); #4 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 $37,631, about -5.7% vs the U.S. campus median ($39,899).

The median campus reports 85.1% of its 8-year cohort as working and not enrolled—our closest federal proxy to a placement rate. The U.S. campus median is 85.5% (-0.4 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 66.7% vs a U.S. median of 65.2%—a leading indicator for completion and time-to-degree.

Loan repayment indicators at the median campus: 2-yr default 13.7% (U.S. 11.1%); 3-yr repayment progress 44.2% (U.S. 50.5%). 3-yr default is omitted when most campuses report suppressed zeros.

Nationally, Texas ranks earnings #33 and employment proxy #30 on these outcome medians (1 = best).

Top employment-outcome campuses in this extract include William Edge Institute (100.0%), Covenant School of Nursing and Allied Health (92.4%), Concorde Career College-Grand Prairie (91.3%), Concorde Career College-Dallas (91.2%), Universal Technical Institute of Texas Inc. (90.7%), Universal Technical Institute-West Texas (90.7%), Blinn College District (90.4%), Lincoln College of Technology-Grand Prairie (89.4%), Texas Southmost College (89.3%), Valley Grande Institute for Academic Studies (89.1%)—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 $32,061 (142 campuses); Private nonprofit median 10-yr earnings $35,882 (8 campuses); Public median 10-yr earnings $43,299 (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 66.5% (national institution average about 66.8%).