Ranking Methodology
How we evaluate and rank 2,789 trade and vocational colleges using federal data
1 Our Approach
Our rankings are built on three principles: transparency, objectivity, and relevance to trade school students.
Rather than relying on subjective surveys or institutional reputation, we use publicly available federal data reported by every institution receiving federal financial aid. Every metric, weight, and calculation is documented here so you can understand exactly how schools are evaluated.
We designed our methodology specifically for trade and vocational colleges. Many popular ranking systems are built for four-year universities and use metrics like SAT scores, research output, or alumni giving that are irrelevant to trade education. Our criteria focus on what matters most to trade school students: Do students complete their programs? Do they stay enrolled? Does the school offer robust training options?
2 Data Source
All ranking data comes from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), maintained by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), a division of the U.S. Department of Education.
Why IPEDS?
- Mandatory reporting — every institution receiving federal financial aid must report to IPEDS
- Standardized definitions — metrics are collected using consistent methodology across all schools
- Publicly available — anyone can verify the underlying data through the NCES website
- Updated annually — institutions submit data on a regular cycle, with new data released each year
3 Overall Ranking Criteria
Our overall ranking evaluates schools across six categories, each measuring a different aspect of educational quality.
Weight Distribution
Tier 1 Full Data Rankings
Tier 2 Partial Data Rankings
Student Outcomes
30% weight Tier 1 onlyMetric: Overall completion rate from IPEDS outcome measures — the percentage of students who complete a credential within 200% of normal time.
Why it matters: The most direct measure of whether a school delivers on its promise. A school with a high completion rate is effectively helping students finish their training and earn their credentials. This metric captures students across all enrollment patterns (full-time, part-time, first-time, transfer), making it especially relevant for trade colleges where non-traditional enrollment is common.
Student Retention
20% / 40% weightMetric: Full-time student retention rate — the percentage of first-time, full-time students who return for their second year.
Why it matters: Retention reflects the day-to-day student experience. Schools where students feel supported, engaged, and confident in their education keep students coming back. Low retention often signals issues with instruction quality, student services, or program value. For Tier 2 schools (which lack completion data), retention carries the heaviest weight at 40%.
Student-Faculty Ratio
10% weight Tier 1 onlyMetric: Total enrollment divided by total instructional staff count — calculated from IPEDS faculty and enrollment data. Lower ratios indicate more instructor availability per student.
Why it matters: In hands-on trade programs, instructor availability directly affects training quality. A lower student-to-faculty ratio means smaller class sizes, more one-on-one instruction time, and better supervision during practical exercises like welding, electrical work, or HVAC installation. Schools with lower ratios can provide more personalized feedback and safer training environments.
Note: This metric uses an inverted percentile — schools with lower ratios receive higher scores, since fewer students per instructor is better for learning outcomes.
Program Productivity
20% / 30% weightMetric: Total program completions divided by total enrollment — a ratio measuring how efficiently a school produces graduates relative to its size.
Why it matters: A high productivity ratio means the school is actively moving students through programs to completion, not just enrolling them. This is particularly relevant for trade colleges, where many students earn certificates or associate degrees in 1-2 years. Schools with high enrollment but low completions may be enrolling students without adequately supporting them to finish.
Program Breadth
10% / 15% weightMetric: Count of unique CIP (Classification of Instructional Programs) families offered — the number of distinct program areas, such as welding, nursing, automotive, IT, and more.
Why it matters: Schools offering more program families give students broader career options and the ability to explore related fields. A school with only one or two programs may serve a niche well, but schools with more breadth tend to have stronger institutional infrastructure, more diverse student services, and better career placement resources.
Institutional Scale
10% / 15% weightMetric: Total enrollment, normalized using a logarithmic scale to prevent large schools from disproportionately dominating this category.
Why it matters: Larger institutions typically offer more resources: more instructors, better facilities, more student services, and a wider network of alumni and employer partnerships. The logarithmic normalization ensures that a school of 5,000 students doesn't score dramatically higher than one with 2,000 — both benefit from institutional scale — while very small schools with fewer than 100 students are appropriately noted.
4 Overall Two-Tier System
Not all schools report the same data to IPEDS. Specifically, the outcome completion rate — our most heavily weighted metric — is only available for about 37% of trade colleges. Rather than exclude the majority of schools, we use a two-tier system:
Full Data Rankings
1,048 schools with complete data including outcome completion rates, retention rates, faculty staffing, completions, and enrollment.
These schools are ranked 1 through 1,048 using all six criteria, with Student Outcomes carrying the heaviest weight at 30%.
Required data
- Outcome completion rate
- Retention rate
- Program completions
- Total enrollment
- Faculty staffing data
Partial Data Rankings
1,741 schools with retention rates, completions, and enrollment — but without outcome completion rates.
These schools are ranked 1,049 through 2,789 using four criteria, with Student Retention carrying the heaviest weight at 40%.
Required data
- Retention rate
- Program completions
- Total enrollment
- No outcome completion rate
Insufficient Data
344 schools lack sufficient data to be meaningfully ranked (e.g., missing retention rates or enrollment figures). These schools still have profile pages on our site but do not receive a ranking position.
Why not combine tiers? Comparing schools with and without completion data on the same scale would be unfair. A Tier 2 school can't earn credit for a metric it doesn't report. By ranking tiers separately and then sequencing them (Tier 1 first, Tier 2 second), we ensure the most complete data gets the highest priority while still including schools with less data.
5 Working Student Ranking
Our Best for Working Students ranking is designed specifically for students who work while attending school. The overall ranking uses full-time completion and retention metrics, but working students face different challenges: irregular schedules, part-time enrollment, and competing demands on their time. A school that excels for full-time residential students may not serve working adults equally well.
This ranking uses part-time-specific outcome data from IPEDS to identify schools where working students are most likely to succeed. It ranks 1,565 trade colleges based on how well they serve non-traditional, part-time learners.
Ranking Criteria
Five categories, each focused on the part-time student experience.
Weight Distribution
Tier 1 Full Data Rankings
Tier 2 Partial Data Rankings
Part-Time Completion Rate
35% weight Tier 1 onlyMetric: The percentage of part-time students who complete a credential within 200% of normal time, from IPEDS outcome measures.
Why it matters: The most direct measure of whether part-time and working students actually finish their programs. IPEDS tracks this separately from full-time rates, giving a true picture of part-time student outcomes. Schools where working students complete at high rates are providing the right combination of scheduling, support, and program design.
Part-Time Retention Rate
25% / 40% weightMetric: The percentage of first-time, part-time students who return for their second year.
Why it matters: Do part-time students come back? Working students have more reasons to drop out — schedule conflicts, financial pressure, family demands. Schools that retain part-time students are providing flexible scheduling, academic support, and programs worth continuing. For Tier 2 (which lacks completion data), this carries 40% weight.
Part-Time Accessibility
20% / 30% weightMetric: Part-time enrollment as a percentage of total enrollment, calculated from IPEDS enrollment by attendance status data.
Why it matters: The proportion of part-time students signals how well a school is structured for non-traditional schedules. A school where 60% of students attend part-time is likely more accommodating to working adults than one where only 5% do — more evening/weekend sections, more flexible advising, and institutional culture built around non-traditional learners.
Program Breadth
10% / 15% weightMetric: Count of unique CIP program families offered.
Why it matters: Working adults often seek career changes or skill upgrades. Schools with more program options help career changers find relevant training without switching institutions, reducing disruption for students who are already balancing work and education.
Institutional Scale
10% / 15% weightMetric: Total enrollment, normalized using a logarithmic scale.
Why it matters: Larger institutions tend to offer more scheduling flexibility — more course sections, evening and weekend options, and better student services. This directly benefits working students who need non-standard schedules.
Two-Tier System
The working student ranking uses the same two-tier approach as our overall ranking, but with different data requirements. IPEDS part-time outcome reporting is less universal than full-time data, so more schools are unranked in this system.
Full PT Data
835 schools with part-time completion rates, part-time retention rates, and enrollment attendance data.
Ranked 1 through 835 using all five criteria, with PT Completion Rate at 35%.
Required data
- Part-time completion rate
- Part-time retention rate
- Enrollment by attendance status
Partial PT Data
730 schools with part-time retention and enrollment data but without part-time completion rates.
Ranked 836 through 1,565 using four criteria, with PT Retention Rate at 40%.
Required data
- Part-time retention rate
- Enrollment by attendance status
- No part-time completion rate
Insufficient Part-Time Data
1,568 schools lack part-time retention data entirely. This is a significantly larger unranked pool than the overall ranking (344 unranked) because IPEDS part-time outcome reporting is less universal — many smaller and for-profit institutions don't report part-time student metrics separately.
Metrics Considered but Not Used
Distance Education Percentage
Only 28.7% of schools report this metric (898 of 3,133). More importantly, many excellent trade programs are inherently hands-on — welding, HVAC, automotive, and electrical programs require in-person lab work. Penalizing schools for lacking online options would be misleading for trade education, where workshop training is often essential.
Tuition
In-state tuition is only available for about 32% of schools and is heavily biased toward public institutions. Including it would systematically exclude most for-profit trade schools from the ranking, which would not be representative.
Working Student Success Rate
Despite its suggestive name, this IPEDS field contains identical values and coverage to partTimeCompletionRate in every college file we analyzed. It appears to be a derived or duplicate field, so we use partTimeCompletionRate as the canonical metric.
Key Caveats
Public school data advantage: Public institutions have approximately 71% coverage for part-time completion rate data, compared to only 18% for private for-profit schools. This means the working student ranking may skew toward public institutions, not because they necessarily serve working students better, but because they are more likely to report the data needed for Tier 1 classification.
Higher unranked rate: About 50% of schools are unranked in the working student ranking versus 11% in the overall ranking. This reflects the reality that IPEDS part-time reporting is less universal, not that unranked schools are poor choices for working students.
6 How Scores Are Calculated
We use percentile-based scoring to ensure each metric contributes fairly regardless of its natural range. Here's how it works:
Collect raw values
For each metric, we extract the raw value from IPEDS data. For example, a school's retention rate might be 72%.
Calculate percentile within tier
Each school's metric is ranked against all other schools in the same tier. If a school's retention rate is higher than 65% of Tier 1 schools, its retention percentile is 65.
Apply weights
Each percentile score is multiplied by the category weight. For Tier 1, a retention percentile of 65 contributes 65 × 0.20 = 13.00 to the composite score.
Sum for composite score
All weighted percentiles are added together for a composite score from 0 to 100. Higher scores indicate stronger overall performance.
Rank by composite score
Schools are sorted by composite score within their tier. Tier 1 schools are ranked first (1 to 1,048), followed by Tier 2 (1,049 to 2,789).
Worked Example (Tier 1)
| Category | Percentile | Weight | Contribution |
|---|---|---|---|
| Student Outcomes | 82 | × 0.30 | 24.60 |
| Student Retention | 65 | × 0.20 | 13.00 |
| Program Productivity | 90 | × 0.20 | 18.00 |
| Student-Faculty Ratio | 70 | × 0.10 | 7.00 |
| Program Breadth | 75 | × 0.10 | 7.50 |
| Institutional Scale | 88 | × 0.10 | 8.80 |
| Composite Score | 78.90 | ||
7 What We Don't Rank
Transparency means being honest about what we exclude and why. Several metrics that seem like natural ranking factors were deliberately left out due to data quality issues.
Graduation Rate
Problem: 89% of trade colleges report a graduation rate of 100%. This is a known IPEDS artifact for short-term programs — the IPEDS graduation rate survey is designed around 150% of normal time for bachelor's degrees (6 years). For certificate programs that take weeks or months, virtually all students who are still enrolled at the survey point have "graduated," making the metric meaningless.
We use the outcome measures completion rate instead, which tracks students over 200% of normal time and captures all enrollment types, providing a much more meaningful picture for trade colleges.
Tuition & Net Price
Problem: Average net price data is completely absent from our college dataset, and in-state tuition is only available for about 32% of schools. Including it would systematically exclude for-profit trade schools (which rarely report published tuition in the same format) and create an unfair bias.
Where available, we display tuition information on individual college profiles and ranking cards, but it is not used as a ranking factor.
Job Placement Rates
Problem: IPEDS does not collect job placement data. While some schools self-report placement rates through marketing materials or accreditation reports, these figures are not standardized, independently verified, or available for most schools.
We would love to include employment outcomes if a reliable, universal data source becomes available in the future.
8 Limitations & Disclaimers
No ranking system is perfect. Here are the limitations you should keep in mind:
Rankings are one factor, not the only factor
A school's ranking should be one input in your decision, alongside factors like location, specific programs of interest, campus visits, financial aid offers, and personal fit. The #50 school might be a better choice for you than the #1 school.
Data reporting varies by institution
While IPEDS requires reporting, the accuracy and completeness of data depends on each institution's reporting practices. Some schools may report more conservatively or have data entry errors that affect their scores.
For-profit schools tend to have less data
For-profit trade schools are more likely to be classified as Tier 2 due to less complete IPEDS reporting. This doesn't necessarily mean they provide worse education — just that less standardized data is available for evaluation.
Program-level performance is not captured
Our rankings evaluate institutions as a whole. A school might have an exceptional welding program but weaker outcomes in other areas, and our institutional-level metrics won't distinguish that. Future "Best by Program" rankings will address this.
Small school volatility
Schools with very small enrollment can show large year-over-year swings in metrics. A retention rate based on 20 students is inherently more volatile than one based on 2,000 students. We include institutional scale as a ranking factor in part to account for this.
9 Data Freshness
Rankings Edition
2026
IPEDS Data Year
2022-2023
Schools Evaluated
3,133
IPEDS data is released on an annual cycle, typically with a 1-2 year lag. Our current rankings use the most recent complete dataset available. Rankings are regenerated when new IPEDS data becomes available.
10 Future Rankings
Our ranking system is designed to support multiple ranking types. Here's what we're working on:
Best by State
State-specific rankings with localized comparisons. Available now at state pages.
Most Diverse
Rankings based on diversity indices, minority enrollment, and gender balance. Coming soon
Best by Program
Filter rankings by program field — find the best schools for welding, nursing, IT, and more. Coming soon
Best Value
Value-focused rankings balancing tuition costs, financial aid availability, and post-completion outcomes. Coming soon
Explore the Rankings
Now that you understand how schools are evaluated, explore the full rankings to find the right trade college for you.