Associate degree · earnings 4 years after completing
Highest-Paying Colleges for Automotive Technology (Associate)
Graduates who complete a associate degree in Automotive Technology earn a median of $58,424 four years after finishing, and the middle half earn between $40,794 and $77,509. We rank the 71 U.S. colleges whose Automotive Technology programs have at least 25 graduates in the Scorecard earnings sample, 7,259 graduates in all. That puts Automotive Technology at #5 of 27 associate degree fields we rank by national median earnings.
Tarrant County College District, in Texas, leads at $90,737, 51% above the median ranked school ($60,060). Most schools are tightly bunched: the middle half of ranked schools earn between $54,850 and $64,192, and the lowest earns $40,032, so outside the leaders the choice of school moves earnings less than the choice of major. 42 of the 71 ranked schools (59%) match or beat the national median.
Public universities dominate the top 20: 15 public, 4 private nonprofit and 1 for-profit. Across all ranked schools, 82% are public. Minnesota places 4 schools in the top 20, ahead of Colorado (2).
The top 20 schools cost about the same as the rest of the list: a median net price of $10,702 a year, against $10,999 across all 71 ranked schools. Their graduates who borrowed carry a median of $12,000 in federal loans, about 17% of one year of earnings. Measured against a typical high-school graduate in the same state, the median top-20 school recovers its net cost in about 0.6 years.
Showing the top 50 of 71 ranked schools. Select a column heading to re-sort the table. † = fewer than 40 graduates in the earnings sample.
| 1 | Tarrant County College District Fort Worth, TX Public · 2-year | $90,737 | 43 | — | $4,337 | 0.2 |
| 2 | Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University-Daytona Beach Daytona Beach, FL Private nonprofit · 4-year | $83,749 | 47 | $15,375 | $41,272 | 1.7 |
| 3 | Rock Valley College Rockford, IL Public · 2-year | $83,428 | 33 † | — | $5,242 | 0.2 |
| 4 | Spartan College of Aeronautics and Technology (CO) Broomfield, CO For-profit · 2-year | $83,282 | 212 | $17,590 | $30,065 | 1.4 |
| 5 | Vaughn College of Aeronautics and Technology Flushing, NY Private nonprofit · 4-year | $82,928 | 219 | $19,000 | $39,986 | 1.7 |
| 6 | Alexandria Technical & Community College Alexandria, MN Public · 2-year | $80,688 | 41 | $12,000 | $13,691 | 0.6 |
| 7 | Oklahoma State University Institute of Technology Okmulgee, OK Public · 4-year | $75,882 | 98 | $11,000 | $10,999 | 0.5 |
| 8 | North Dakota State College of Science Wahpeton, ND Public · 2-year | $74,744 | 141 | $11,554 | $11,261 | 0.6 |
| 9 | Idaho State University Pocatello, ID Public · 4-year | $73,863 | 55 | $12,625 | $12,193 | 0.7 |
| 10 | Suffolk County Community College Selden, NY Public · 2-year | $72,700 | 32 † | — | $5,258 | 0.3 |
| 11 | Salt Lake Community College Salt Lake City, UT Public · 2-year | $72,357 | 41 | $6,500 | $9,804 | 0.6 |
| 12 | Portland Community College Portland, OR Public · 2-year | $71,462 | 33 † | $12,666 | $10,405 | 0.6 |
| 13 | Parkland College Champaign, IL Public · 2-year | $70,208 | 50 | $7,000 | $8,048 | 0.5 |
| 14 | St Cloud Technical and Community College Saint Cloud, MN Public · 2-year | $70,185 | 29 † | $10,738 | $9,635 | 0.6 |
| 15 | Community College of Aurora Aurora, CO Public · 4-year | $68,677 | 27 † | — | $8,656 | 0.6 |
| 16 | Baker College Owosso, MI Private nonprofit · 4-year | $66,205 | 131 | $12,000 | $13,157 | 0.8 |
| 17 | College of Southern Idaho Twin Falls, ID Public · 4-year | $65,164 | 25 † | — | $6,095 | 0.4 |
| 18 | Dunwoody College of Technology Minneapolis, MN Private nonprofit · 4-year | $64,209 | 55 | $12,000 | $26,939 | 2.0 |
| 19 | Austin Community College District Austin, TX Public · 4-year | $64,174 | 34 † | — | $6,390 | 0.4 |
| 20 | Minnesota State Community and Technical College Fergus Falls, MN Public · 2-year | $63,817 | 43 | $12,000 | $12,556 | 1.0 |
| 21 | SUNY Morrisville Morrisville, NY Public · 4-year | $63,816 | 69 | $12,000 | $15,939 | 1.1 |
| 22 | Massachusetts Bay Community College Wellesley Hills, MA Public · 2-year | $63,654 | 35 † | $7,173 | $7,169 | 0.6 |
| 23 | Hallmark University San Antonio, TX Private nonprofit · 4-year | $62,986 | 177 | $22,062 | $12,513 | 0.9 |
| 24 | Hawkeye Community College Waterloo, IA Public · 2-year | $62,817 | 40 | $12,000 | $9,649 | 0.8 |
| 25 | Central Maine Community College Auburn, ME Public · 2-year | $62,797 | 26 † | $11,500 | $6,975 | 0.6 |
| 26 | Pennsylvania College of Technology Williamsport, PA Public · 4-year | $62,647 | 154 | $12,000 | $25,110 | 1.9 |
| 27 | Iowa Western Community College Council Bluffs, IA Public · 2-year | $62,400 | 43 | $13,000 | $14,629 | 1.2 |
| 28 | Central Piedmont Community College Charlotte, NC Public · 2-year | $62,210 | 62 | — | $3,345 | 0.2 |
| 29 | Northwest Iowa Community College Sheldon, IA Public · 2-year | $61,907 | 35 † | $11,326 | $14,800 | 1.2 |
| 30 | Kirkwood Community College Cedar Rapids, IA Public · 2-year | $61,486 | 37 † | $10,000 | $9,705 | 0.8 |
| 31 | Lewis-Clark State College Lewiston, ID Public · 4-year | $61,383 | 26 † | $12,000 | $15,635 | 1.3 |
| 32 | Dallas College Dallas, TX Public · 4-year | $60,937 | 55 | $8,044 | $3,214 | 0.2 |
| 33 | Lake Area Technical College Watertown, SD Public · 2-year | $60,763 | 165 | $12,000 | $15,979 | 1.3 |
| 34 | Dakota County Technical College Rosemount, MN Public · 2-year | $60,744 | 77 | $12,000 | $13,548 | 1.2 |
| 35 | Northern Virginia Community College Annandale, VA Public · 2-year | $60,215 | 32 † | — | $9,919 | 0.8 |
| 36 | Universal Technical Institute of Arizona Inc Avondale, AZ For-profit · 2-year | $60,060 | 1,926 | $17,336 | $30,451 | 2.6 |
| 37 | Southeast Technical College Sioux Falls, SD Public · 2-year | $60,041 | 65 | $12,000 | $17,400 | 1.5 |
| 38 | Walla Walla Community College Walla Walla, WA Public · 4-year | $59,294 | 33 † | — | $9,406 | 1.0 |
| 39 | Vermont State University Randolph, VT Public · 4-year | $59,232 | 35 † | — | $18,212 | 1.7 |
| 40 | Clark College Vancouver, WA Public · 4-year | $58,804 | 33 † | $9,625 | $11,465 | 1.3 |
| 41 | SUNY College of Technology at Alfred Alfred, NY Public · 4-year | $58,750 | 182 | $12,000 | $15,016 | 1.3 |
| 42 | University of Northwestern Ohio Lima, OH Private nonprofit · 4-year | $58,429 | 628 | $19,584 | $21,807 | 2.0 |
| 43 | State Technical College of Missouri Linn, MO Public · 2-year | $58,354 | 112 | $12,000 | $15,190 | 1.3 |
| 44 | Iowa Central Community College Fort Dodge, IA Public · 2-year | $58,259 | 76 | $12,000 | $9,328 | 0.9 |
| 45 | Tidewater Community College Norfolk, VA Public · 2-year | $57,951 | 36 † | $7,000 | $11,762 | 1.1 |
| 46 | Nashua Community College Nashua, NH Public · 2-year | $57,870 | 39 † | $10,549 | $23,154 | 2.9 |
| 47 | Monroe Community College Rochester, NY Public · 2-year | $57,250 | 38 † | $8,876 | $6,353 | 0.6 |
| 48 | Guilford Technical Community College Jamestown, NC Public · 2-year | $57,149 | 63 | $13,000 | $15,002 | 1.3 |
| 49 | College of Western Idaho Nampa, ID Public · 4-year | $56,346 | 40 | $8,000 | $8,500 | 0.9 |
| 50 | College of Southern Nevada Las Vegas, NV Public · 4-year | $55,996 | 36 † | — | $6,615 | 0.7 |
How this ranking is built
A school appears here only if it meets every condition below.
- Which programs count
- Main campuses only, one entry per institution. Scorecard reports program outcomes for the whole six-digit federal ID (OPEID6), so branch campuses share their parent’s numbers and are not listed twice.
- Only associate degree programs in Automotive Technology (CIP 4706, the four-digit code Scorecard uses to group related programs).
- At least 25 graduates in the earnings sample. Smaller samples are left out because their medians swing too much and the counts carry a little privacy noise.
- A major gets a page only when at least 20 schools qualify. This one has 71.
- Ranked by median earnings 4 years after completing, highest first. Ties go to the larger sample, then to the school name.
- Schools missing earnings or a sample size are left out rather than estimated.
- What the numbers mean
- Earnings: median annual earnings of graduates four years after completing. The cohort completed in academic years 2017-18 and 2018-19 and was measured in calendar years 2022 and 2023, in 2024 dollars.
- Who is counted: graduates who received federal student aid (Title IV grants or loans), and only those who were working and not enrolled in more school that year. Graduates without federal aid, those who went on to further study and those with no earnings are not in the median.
- Scorecard adds privacy noise to counts and medians and hides values it cannot protect, so a gap of a few percent between two schools is not meaningful.
- Graduates: the number of graduates in that earnings sample. A † marks fewer than 40, where the figure is less precise.
- Debt: median federal loan debt (Stafford and Grad PLUS loans disbursed at that school) of graduates who borrowed, from the 2018-19 and 2019-20 completers. Parent PLUS and private loans are not included.
- Net price: average yearly cost after grants and scholarships for the whole institution, not this major, academic year 2023-24.
- Payback: 2 years of net price divided by how much these earnings exceed a high-school graduate’s in the school’s state. Shown only when that gap is at least $2,000, the same formula as the rest of the site.
- Source: U.S. Department of Education College Scorecard field-of-study data, June 2026 release.
Top states for Automotive Technology earnings
Median of the school medians for states with at least 3 ranked schools. The best school in each state is shown.
| State | Median earnings | Ranked schools | Top school |
|---|---|---|---|
| Colorado | $68,677 | 3 | Spartan College of Aeronautics and Technology (CO) |
| Minnesota | $64,209 | 5 | Alexandria Technical & Community College |
| Idaho | $63,274 | 4 | Idaho State University |
| Texas | $61,962 | 6 | Tarrant County College District |
| Iowa | $61,697 | 6 | Hawkeye Community College |
| South Dakota | $60,041 | 3 | Lake Area Technical College |
| Washington | $58,804 | 3 | Walla Walla Community College |
| New York | $57,250 | 9 | Vaughn College of Aeronautics and Technology |
| North Carolina | $57,149 | 3 | Central Piedmont Community College |
| Pennsylvania | $55,101 | 4 | Pennsylvania College of Technology |
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