New Castle
School of Trades
For-profit Community College in New Castle, PA. Six-year graduation rate 76%. Median 10-year earnings $44,814.
The median ten-year earnings figure of $44,814 sits near the national middle rather than at either extreme. Completion is a strength: 76% of students finish within six years. Graduates leave owing a median of $9,567 — modest by four-year standards. It also moves people — 4.2% of students climb from the bottom fifth of the income distribution to the top.
Earnings: College Scorecard, median ten years after entry across students who received federal aid — completers and non-completers alike.
- ✓ Debt-to-income ratio 0.21 — healthy (below the 0.40 threshold)
- ✓ Graduation rate 76% — well above the national average
- ✓ 3-year loan default 0.0% — below national benchmark
Academics
A 76% six-year graduation rate is the strongest academic signal on this page. Retention of 79% means a meaningful slice of each entering class does not return. The 15:1 student-faculty ratio is small enough that seminar-sized classes are the norm. This is a for-profit two-year institution. That is not disqualifying, but it does mean verifying accreditation, transferability of credits, and job-placement claims directly rather than trusting the category. This is a small school — 964 undergraduates — so cohorts are tight and the program list is necessarily short.
Financial Aid
IPEDS Student Financial Aid · 2023-24 · grant and loan rates against 964 degree- or certificate-seeking undergraduates
Students pay an average of $8,361 annually, well below typical undergraduate net price. The gap between the $0–30k and $75–110k bands is narrow ($8,038 versus $12,817), meaning aid is not strongly need-weighted. Grant aid reaches 75% of students at an average of $9,548. Federal borrowing reaches 52% of students.
Entering first-year students
A different, smaller group than the rates above: full-time students in their first year of college anywhere. The grant series here also excludes the "other sources" counted in the all-undergraduate figure, so the two are not comparable.
IPEDS Student Financial Aid · 2023-24 · 456 students
Net price by family income
The same students as the headline above, limited to those who received Title IV federal aid — a narrower group, with a lower overall average. IPEDS publishes no combined figure across these bands, so they should not be averaged into one.
| Family income band | Average net price |
|---|---|
| $0–30k | $8,038 |
| $30–48k | $9,904 |
| $48–75k | $6,822 |
| $75–110k | $12,817 |
| $110k+ | — |
IPEDS Student Financial Aid · 2023-24
Federal student loans went to 497 of these 964 students, totalling $3,111,399 — an average of $6,260 each.
IPEDS Student Financial Aid · 2023-24
Local housing costs
Typical rents near campus (Lawrence County) — budget these against any cost-of-attendance housing estimate.
HUD Fair Market Rents (40th-percentile gross rent incl. utilities) · FY2026
Veterans & GI Bill
VA GI Bill Comparison Tool (Veterans Affairs GIDS)