About Best Mechanic School

Who Publishes This Site

Best Mechanic School is published by Savo Media Group. Trevor Rupe builds and edits this site and answers for what is on it. Taylor Rupe is the other person behind Savo Media Group and sets the direction the sites are researched and written to.

The rankings come from the accreditors’ own lists and from federal data sets, each named beside the figure it supplies. Nobody at the publisher chooses who ranks where: the same scoring rules apply to every program, and the method is on How We Rank.

Meet Trevor Rupe

Trevor Rupe, Contributor at Savo Media Group

Trevor built and edits this site. Every ranked program comes from the ASE Education Foundation’s list of accredited programs or the FAA’s list of certificated aviation maintenance technician schools, every ranked figure from a published source named beside it, and every pay figure from the Bureau of Labor Statistics occupation named beside it.

Trevor Rupe on LinkedIn

How a Program Gets Ranked

Automotive, diesel and collision repair programs are ranked only if the ASE Education Foundation accredits them in the matching area. Aviation maintenance programs are ranked only if the FAA certificates the school under 14 CFR Part 147. Each program is then matched to its school in the federal IPEDS data, which supplies its awards, prices and graduation rate, and to College Scorecard, which supplies graduate earnings.

A program must also take part in federal student aid, be open, and have awarded at least five certificates of 12 weeks or longer or associate’s degrees in its trade in 2024-25. A program whose accreditation date on the list has passed is left out until the date is current.

What the Rankings Measure

The score out of 100 has five parts: cost (25), graduate earnings (25), completion (20), track record (15) and program reputation (15). Cost, completion, earnings and track record come from federal data; program reputation is a 0 to 4 rating that Cloudflare’s Clef language model makes for each program on its own, from the same few facts for every program (the school, the trade, its city and state, whether it is public or private, and its accreditation). The rating is an input to the score, not a statement about a school, and no individual rating is printed.

A high score says a program is accredited, affordable, finishes many of its students, graduates well-paid technicians and awards many credentials. It does not say a program is right for a particular student, a particular city or a particular schedule.

What We Will Not Do

• Rank a program that lacks the accreditation its trade requires, or confuse program accreditation with technician certification. The ASE Education Foundation accredits programs; ASE certifies technicians.
• Let a school, a manufacturer or an advertiser change a score or a rank.
• Publish a price, a graduation rate or an earnings figure that does not come from a named source.

How This Site Is Funded

This site earns money from sponsored school listings served by the education ad network Esyoh, which are marked as ads wherever they appear. Schools pay to appear in those listings, not in the rankings: a listing is not scored, and no listing can change a ranking. Rankings come from published records, and program details from each school’s own published pages.

Reporting a Correction

If a figure on a page is wrong, write to hello@savomediagroup.com with the page address and the figure. Corrections are made from the source the figure came from, and the page’s update date changes when a correction is published.