In 2025, nearly 900,000 Tennesseans were carrying an average of $38,000 in student loan debt. These daunting numbers also come with the unfortunate reality that many of the degrees earned will leave graduates without a higher earning potential. Beacon’s 2022 report, Higher Education and Higher Debts, highlighted data from the College Scorecard showing that many degrees leave graduates with substantial debt with low median earnings. This sets up a cycle in which graduates are unlikely ever to pay off their debt after earning their degree.
In Beacon’s report, 16 of the 24 highest performing programs, with low median debt and high median earnings, were associate degrees. This means vocational and shorter programs can give graduates high earning potential, coupled with a low debt burden. The data did not include the Tennessee Colleges of Applied Technology (TCATs). These vocational schools offer certificates and diplomas in programs that can take just a few months or up to two years to complete. But given their smaller class sizes, the federal government suppresses median debt and earnings data for most TCAT programs. However, median earnings at the institution and largest program levels are available.
While median earnings at the institutional level do not provide the best picture of which TCAT programs offer the best return on investment (ROI) for higher education, they do indicate whether TCAT graduates achieve a decent ROI. And, surprisingly, the median TCAT earnings across all campuses outperformed some bachelor’s degree programs at some state colleges and universities. For individual programs at TCATs that had large enough cohorts to release data, heavy/industrial equipment maintenance programs were the highest earners at many campuses. For graduates of the program at TCAT Shelbyville, their median earnings were over $77,000, an absolutely fantastic return on investment for programs with a total tuition and fee cost of less than $7,500.
Additional analysis ranking 4,600 institutions by their ROI shows TCAT schools placing in five of the top 10 spots for best ROI, based on 10 years of earning data, compared with all institutions in Tennessee. Elite institutions like Vanderbilt University have the best ROI in the state, yet TCATs manage a respectable showing in the top ten, with no TCAT having earnings below the top half of all institutions in 10 years of earning data. Numbers like these show that low-cost, low-time commitment programs have the ability to give their graduates a track to well-paid careers.
Technical schools may not be the right choice for every high school graduate. Still, for those who have graduated from such programs, data shows they have the potential to make a good living while supporting their local communities, all while avoiding years of student loan payments. In a time of significant shortages in skilled labor, TCATs and other technical schools are providing the skills and training required to keep building Tennessee as the best state to work, live, and raise a family.