Short-Term Certificate Earnings by College

For students and families

Short-term certificates can be a fast path to a first job, or a first step toward further education. The data on this page don't tell us which route each graduate took. They show what people actually earned after finishing, one, five, and ten years out, so you can see how the credential tends to pay off over time.

The earnings here come from the U.S. Census Bureau, drawn from payroll and tax records. These are actual earnings, not student surveys (which suffer from response bias and other biases) or web-scraped salary figures (often unverified and duplicated across sites).

Two ways to explore the data

A few questions worth asking

• Trajectory. How do earnings move from year one to year ten? For short-term certificates, the trajectory is often the most telling signal. A steep climb usually means graduates are using the credential as a launch point, whether through experience on the job or additional training. A flat line can mean the credential caps out quickly in the labor market.
• Spread and risk. How big is the gap between the graduates who earn the least and those who earn the most? A narrow gap means most graduates end up in a similar place. A wide gap means where you land depends a lot on what you do after finishing.

A note on coverage and context. Not every college is in this data. Coverage depends on which states and systems share their records with the U.S. Census Bureau, so a missing school isn't a verdict on quality. Self-employed graduates are also not covered, since their earnings don't run through standard payroll records. That's worth keeping in mind for certificates in the trades, personal services, and other fields where solo work is common. One more thing the data can't show: whether a graduate went on to more schooling after finishing the certificate. Some did, some didn't, and the earnings reflect whatever path each graduate ended up taking.