Western Technical College
For-profit Community College in El Paso, TX. Six-year graduation rate 44%. Median 10-year earnings $36,156.
Median earnings ten years after entry come to $36,156, below what most undergraduate institutions return — the central fact to weigh against cost here. The six-year graduation rate is 44%, meaning about three in five students who start do not finish. Median debt at graduation is $17,277, roughly typical for an undergraduate degree. Mobility is where this school separates itself: 6.7% of students move from the bottom income quintile to the top.
Earnings: College Scorecard, median ten years after entry across students who received federal aid — completers and non-completers alike.
- ✓ Mobility score 6.7 — top quartile among US colleges
- ✓ 3-year loan default 0.0% — below national benchmark
Academics
Completion is middling: 44% finish inside six years. 85% of full-time first-years return for a second year — a healthy figure. The distance between those two figures is the part worth noticing — students return for a second year at a much higher rate than they graduate, so attrition here is spread across the middle years rather than concentrated in the first. A 30:1 ratio means students need to be deliberate about getting faculty time. Being a for-profit four-year institution is the single most useful context for these numbers — the sector's spread is wide enough that the school-level figures matter more than usual.
Financial Aid
IPEDS Student Financial Aid · 2023-24 · grant and loan rates against 2,081 degree- or certificate-seeking undergraduates
Average net price is $5,294 a year after grant aid — low for a four-year institution, though your own figure depends on aid eligibility. Only 36% of students receive grant aid, so most families are paying near the published price. About 27% borrow federally, roughly the national pattern.
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 · 568 students
Federal student loans went to 558 of these 2,081 students, totalling $1,067,220 — an average of $1,913 each.
IPEDS Student Financial Aid · 2023-24
Local housing costs
Typical rents near campus (El Paso 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)