These are medians for graduates who received federal aid. They are a history of past graduating classes, not a promise of pay.
Most community college rows are blank
Most public certificate and associate’s rows have no figures. Scorecard leaves out small groups to protect privacy, and it only counts graduates who received federal aid. A blank does not mean graduates earned nothing. We leave blanks empty and do not fill them with estimates.
Loading the rows.
Each column is a different graduating class
The three columns do not describe the same people, so they are not one student’s story.
How to read these numbers
Earnings count W-2 pay and self-employment income for graduates who worked and were not enrolled in school that year.
Debt is the median of federal Stafford and Grad PLUS loans taken out at this school for this credential. It leaves out interest that builds up later, Parent PLUS loans and private loans.
Each row is a four-digit field, which can hold several programs.
Scorecard reports schools with several campuses as one group, and that group can include campuses in other states. Check with the school which campus offers a program.
In fields with long training after the degree, such as medicine, early earnings can reflect that training.