Associate degree · earnings 4 years after completing
Highest-Paying Colleges for Veterinary Technology (Associate)
Graduates who complete a associate degree in Veterinary Technology earn a median of $41,460 four years after finishing, and the middle half earn between $31,760 and $51,774. We rank the 43 U.S. colleges whose Veterinary Technology programs have at least 25 graduates in the Scorecard earnings sample, 2,726 graduates in all. That puts Veterinary Technology at #20 of 27 associate degree fields we rank by national median earnings.
CUNY LaGuardia Community College, in New York, leads at $66,272, 53% above the median ranked school ($43,182). Most schools are tightly bunched: the middle half of ranked schools earn between $40,134 and $47,306, and the lowest earns $35,785, so outside the leaders the choice of school moves earnings less than the choice of major. 28 of the 43 ranked schools (65%) match or beat the national median.
Public universities dominate the top 20: 15 public, 2 private nonprofit and 3 for-profit. Across all ranked schools, 77% are public. The top 20 are spread across 17 states, with California the most common (2).
The top 20 schools cost about the same as the rest of the list: a median net price of $10,375 a year, against $10,405 across all 43 ranked schools. Their graduates who borrowed carry a median of $15,232 in federal loans, about 32% 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 1.6 years.
Showing the top 43 of 43 ranked schools. Select a column heading to re-sort the table. † = fewer than 40 graduates in the earnings sample.
| 1 | CUNY LaGuardia Community College Long Island City, NY Public · 2-year | $66,272 | 34 † | — | $6,120 | 0.4 |
| 2 | Manor College Jenkintown, PA Private nonprofit · 4-year | $55,233 | 38 † | $19,000 | $13,078 | 1.4 |
| 3 | Northern Virginia Community College Annandale, VA Public · 2-year | $53,890 | 53 | — | $9,919 | 1.1 |
| 4 | Bergen Community College Paramus, NJ Public · 2-year | $52,755 | 33 † | $15,232 | $10,345 | 1.3 |
| 5 | Stanbridge University Irvine, CA For-profit · 4-year | $52,651 | 64 | $19,500 | $45,372 | 5.8 |
| 6 | Community College of Denver Denver, CO Public · 4-year | $52,209 | 30 † | $8,906 | $9,450 | 1.6 |
| 7 | Connecticut State Community College New Britain, CT Public · 2-year | $50,326 | 47 | — | $11,513 | 1.8 |
| 8 | Portland Community College Portland, OR Public · 2-year | $49,418 | 42 | $19,999 | $10,405 | 1.7 |
| 9 | New England Institute of Technology East Greenwich, RI Private nonprofit · 4-year | $48,474 | 34 † | — | $36,483 | 9.1 |
| 10 | Great Bay Community College Portsmouth, NH Public · 2-year | $47,991 | 32 † | — | $15,768 | 5.2 |
| 11 | Metropolitan Community College-Kansas City Kansas City, MO Public · 2-year | $47,501 | 33 † | — | $8,398 | 1.3 |
| 12 | Dallas College Dallas, TX Public · 4-year | $47,111 | 101 | $10,397 | $3,214 | 0.5 |
| 13 | Macomb Community College Warren, MI Public · 2-year | $46,832 | 26 † | — | $1,618 | 0.3 |
| 14 | Fox College Tinley Park, IL For-profit · 2-year | $46,606 | 143 | $13,625 | $13,109 | 2.5 |
| 15 | St Petersburg College St. Petersburg, FL Public · 4-year | $46,358 | 100 | $15,250 | $1,471 | 0.2 |
| 16 | Mt San Antonio College Walnut, CA Public · 2-year | $45,374 | 36 † | — | $6,490 | 1.5 |
| 17 | SUNY College of Technology at Delhi Delhi, NY Public · 4-year | $45,297 | 108 | $12,000 | $17,225 | 3.6 |
| 18 | Bel-Rea Institute of Animal Technology Denver, CO For-profit · 2-year | $44,975 | 145 | $24,250 | $22,905 | 10.7 |
| 19 | Jefferson State Community College Birmingham, AL Public · 2-year | $44,770 | 34 † | — | $9,086 | 1.4 |
| 20 | Rochester Community and Technical College Rochester, MN Public · 2-year | $44,584 | 33 † | $14,599 | $14,435 | 4.3 |
| 21 | Ulster County Community College Stone Ridge, NY Public · 2-year | $43,988 | 43 | — | $5,035 | 1.2 |
| 22 | Holyoke Community College Holyoke, MA Public · 2-year | $43,182 | 34 † | — | $8,068 | 7.5 |
| 23 | Vermont State University Randolph, VT Public · 4-year | $43,115 | 43 | — | $18,212 | 6.2 |
| 24 | University of New Hampshire-Main Campus Durham, NH Public · 4-year | $42,665 | 29 † | — | $23,805 | — |
| 25 | Central Carolina Community College Sanford, NC Public · 2-year | $42,196 | 43 | — | $5,446 | 1.3 |
| 26 | SUNY College of Technology at Canton Canton, NY Public · 4-year | $42,094 | 26 † | $12,000 | $15,268 | 4.8 |
| 27 | Harcum College Bryn Mawr, PA Private nonprofit · 2-year | $41,892 | 69 | $18,500 | $24,776 | 9.2 |
| 28 | Oklahoma State University-Oklahoma City Oklahoma City, OK Public · 4-year | $41,721 | 34 † | — | $7,081 | 2.0 |
| 29 | Kirkwood Community College Cedar Rapids, IA Public · 2-year | $40,964 | 27 † | — | $9,705 | 5.1 |
| 30 | Genesee Community College Batavia, NY Public · 2-year | $40,380 | 26 † | — | $8,334 | 3.6 |
| 31 | Baker College Owosso, MI Private nonprofit · 4-year | $40,259 | 123 | $14,625 | $13,157 | 4.8 |
| 32 | Vet Tech Institute of Indiana Indianapolis, IN For-profit · 2-year | $40,213 | 219 | $13,526 | $16,045 | 8.6 |
| 33 | Ridgewater College Willmar, MN Public · 2-year | $40,054 | 71 | $13,000 | $10,046 | 9.1 |
| 34 | Morehead State University Morehead, KY Public · 4-year | $39,600 | 47 | — | $9,793 | 4.7 |
| 35 | Vet Tech Institute Pittsburgh, PA For-profit · 2-year | $38,774 | 311 | $13,622 | $16,531 | 14.5 |
| 36 | Parkland College Champaign, IL Public · 2-year | $38,567 | 31 † | — | $8,048 | 6.5 |
| 37 | SUNY College of Technology at Alfred Alfred, NY Public · 4-year | $37,936 | 33 † | $12,714 | $15,016 | 13.7 |
| 38 | Columbia State Community College Columbia, TN Public · 2-year | $37,930 | 29 † | — | $4,734 | 3.0 |
| 39 | University of Nebraska-Lincoln Lincoln, NE Public · 4-year | $37,386 | 31 † | $12,000 | $17,747 | — |
| 40 | Kent State University at Kent Kent, OH Public · 4-year | $36,975 | 54 | $16,384 | $20,787 | — |
| 41 | Iowa Lakes Community College Estherville, IA Public · 2-year | $36,699 | 26 † | — | $13,933 | — |
| 42 | Jefferson College Hillsboro, MO Public · 2-year | $35,963 | 26 † | — | $7,378 | — |
| 43 | Vet Tech Institute of Houston Houston, TX For-profit · 2-year | $35,785 | 185 | $12,000 | $14,714 | — |
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 Veterinary Technology (CIP 0183, 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 43.
- 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 Veterinary 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| New York | $43,041 | 6 | CUNY LaGuardia Community College |
| Pennsylvania | $41,892 | 3 | Manor College |
Related majors
Other fields to compare, by what graduates earn.
-
Medical Assisting (Associate)
$42,269 national median · 187 schools
-
Social Sciences (Associate)
$43,146 national median · 21 schools
-
Communication and Media Studies (Associate)
$43,243 national median · 24 schools
-
Culinary Arts (Associate)
$39,605 national median · 44 schools
-
Human Services (Associate)
$39,422 national median · 26 schools
-
Psychology (Associate)
$39,288 national median · 52 schools
-
Liberal Arts and General Studies (Associate)
$44,125 national median · 588 schools
-
Paralegal and Legal Support (Associate)
$44,669 national median · 25 schools
All majors College rankings How to read Scorecard earnings data Community college vs. four-year college