2012 Healthcare School Rankings
Overall Rankings - Methodology
With hundreds of schools and thousands of degree programs to choose from, it can be difficult for prospective healthcare students to weigh their options. How do you know if a particular degree program is worth the time and money you'll be pouring into it?
At Guide to Healthcare Schools, we're committed to helping students make informed decisions. That's why we've invested our time and resources into developing our first annual healthcare school rankings. This comprehensive ranking system takes many factors into account in order to assess the relative strengths of different schools. By examining retention rates, average tuition cost, repayment rates, as well as student reviews, we feel we've developed a strong tool to help students be more confident as they search for their ideal school.
Overall Rankings
The top-ranked schools are presented in the table below. Clicking on the school's name will allow you to view the school's individual information page to learn more about the institution and the various degree programs it offers. To understand more about the data we collected and how we arrived at the final rank scores, please refer to the methodology section.
Rank |
School |
School Type |
Repayment Rate |
Retention Rate |
Tuition |
Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| # 1 | Swedish Institute | For-Profit | 58% | 86% | $11,375 | 86.65 |
| # 2 | Central Career School | For-Profit | 73% | --- | $9,595 | 84.40 |
| # 3 | Western Governors University | Non-Profit | 51% | 76% | $5,870 | 80.33 |
| # 4 | IntelliTec College | For-Profit | 38% | 89% | $26,915 | 67.66 |
| # 5 | New England Institute of Technology | Non-Profit | 55% | 65% | $18,960 | 66.72 |
| # 6 | Brandman University | Non-Profit | --- | --- | $9,611 | 66.51 |
| # 7 | Daytona College | For-Profit | 42% | 67% | $9,800 | 65.42 |
| # 8 | Concorde Career Colleges | For-Profit | 50% | 58% | $14,360 | 65.01 |
| # 9 | Indiana State University | Public | 48% | 64% | $16,626 | 63.40 |
| # 10 | Northeast Technical Institute | For-Profit | --- | --- | $14,980 | 61.97 |
| # 11 | The Art Institutes | For-Profit | 37% | 90% | $17,444 | 61.68 |
| # 12 | ATA College | For-Profit | 29% | 88% | $11,775 | 61.24 |
| # 13 | Anthem Institute | For-Profit | 40% | 66% | $12,777 | 60.71 |
| # 14 | Vanderbilt University | Non-Profit | 69% | 97% | $39,930 | 59.99 |
| # 15 | University of Phoenix - Healthcare | For-Profit | 44% | 52% | $10,120 | 59.97 |
| # 16 | Boston University - Graduate Programs | Non-Profit | 67% | 91% | $39,864 | 58.64 |
| # 17 | Independence University | For-Profit | --- | 50% | $12,565 | 57.40 |
| # 18 | Stanbridge College | For-Profit | 73% | --- | $30,190 | 56.62 |
| # 19 | TCI College of Technology | For-Profit | --- | 43% | $12,350 | 55.50 |
| # 20 | Walden University | For-Profit | 41% | 29% | $9,480 | 52.53 |
| # 21 | New England College | Non-Profit | 62% | 60% | $29,054 | 52.18 |
| # 22 | Herzing University Online | For-Profit | 39% | 46% | $11,241 | 52.13 |
| # 23 | Kaplan College | For-Profit | 32% | 65% | $13,888 | 52.00 |
| # 24 | Fortis College Online | For-Profit | 27% | 64% | $13,500 | 48.58 |
| # 25 | Institute of Business and Medical Careers | For-Profit | 37% | 60% | $18,000 | 48.44 |
| # 26 | Career Quest | For-Profit | 18% | 71% | $14,229 | 48.00 |
| # 27 | Everest College | For-Profit | 24% | 75% | $17,780 | 47.38 |
| # 28 | Westwood College | For-Profit | 35% | 45% | $14,317 | 45.39 |
| # 29 | Kaplan University - Healthcare Programs | For-Profit | 24% | 25% | $15,372 | 34.38 |
| # 30 | Southern Technical College | For-Profit | 20% | 73% | $30,900 | 24.61 |
Methodology
In publishing these rankings, our intent is to use reliable statistics to generate a trustworthy method that ranks healthcare schools on a yearly basis. These ratings will allow potential students to better judge the schools they are considering attending and make a more educated decision in the end. Data was collected from the Department of Education and The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), which serves as the primary governmental entity for gathering and presenting education statistics to the public.
The following criteria were taken into account:
- Tuition and Fees: The cost of continuing education is a primary consideration for many students looking to further their careers. In an attempt to help students ensure their money is well spent, our rankings take tuition rates into account and reward schools who deliver a quality education at a lower cost.
- For Profit vs. Nonprofit: As the name implies, for-profit schools are educational institutions run by profit-seeking companies. While this data point was not weighted in our calculations, it is included in the table in order to promote transparency about the institutions featured in the rankings.
- Retention Rates: Graduation and retention rates help paint a picture about the general effectiveness of a school. Do students want to return after completing one year of coursework? Are they supported as they work towards completing their graduation requirements? A school with low retention and graduation rates is failing its students.
- Student Feedback: Guide to Healthcare Schools has access to a wealth of student feedback offered by hundreds of healthcare students. Because student satisfaction is an important indicator of a school's success, we took student review data into account when rating the individual schools.
- Repayment Rate: Released by the U.S. government, this metric indicates the percentage of students that are able to pay back their loans in the allotted time without falling into default. This statistic speaks to a schools' ability to prepare its graduates for gainful employment, an important consideration given the current economic climate.
