How We Rank Mechanic Schools

Who Is Ranked

Automotive, diesel and collision programs must be accredited by the ASE Education Foundation in the matching area (Automobile; Medium/Heavy Duty Truck; Collision Repair and Refinishing). Aviation maintenance programs must be FAA-certificated aviation maintenance technician schools under 14 CFR Part 147.

The school must take part in federal student aid (Title IV), be open, and have awarded at least 5 certificates of 12 weeks or longer or associate’s degrees in the area in 2024-25.

A ranked program is one school’s program in one area at one federal reporting unit. Where a school reports several accredited sites together, the page names each site and its figures cover them all.

Where the ASE Education Foundation’s list shows an expiration date that has passed, the program is left out of the ranking until the accreditation is confirmed. That is not a finding that the program is unaccredited.

The ASE Education Foundation accredits programs, not whole schools, and a school’s accreditation says nothing about a trade it does not teach. ASE accreditation of a program is also different from ASE certification of a technician: ASE certifies people who pass its tests and have hands-on experience.

The Five Factors

Each factor is scored on a 0 to 10 bar. The weighted total of those bars, times 10, is the score out of 100, to one decimal. It is an absolute score, not scaled to the top program, so no program reads 100 unless it is the best on every factor.

Each area (automotive, diesel, collision repair and aviation maintenance) is scored as its own national group. A school with programs in two areas has a separate score in each. State pages and other lists keep the national scores.

Factor Definitions

Cost (25 Points)

Tuition and fees for one year, from the federal IPEDS survey for 2024-25. For a college that prices by the academic year, this is the in-district price where the college charges one, else the in-state price. For a school that prices each program as a whole, it is the published price of its largest program in the area, divided by the program’s months and multiplied by 12. We use the IPEDS price wherever IPEDS has one, and the school’s own published price (tuition and required fees, tools excluded) only where IPEDS has none. Scored on a log scale between the 5th and 95th percentile of the area’s ranked programs, lowest price scoring highest.

• Uses the price the school reports to the federal IPEDS survey for 2024-25
• Where IPEDS has no price for the program, uses the whole-program price on the school’s own pages (tuition and required fees, with tools, books and exam fees left out), with its length; each page names that source and the year it states
• Colleges that price by the year are scored on their in-district price where they have one, else their in-state price; California community colleges’ low enrollment fees are the real price a California resident pays
• Schools that price a whole program are scored on that price spread over a year; each page shows the whole-program price and its length, never only the yearly figure
• Books, tools and living costs are not scored
• A program with no price from IPEDS or from the school (or a school price with no stated length to spread over a year) scores as if it cost more than most programs (the 25th percentile of the cost bars), and cannot outscore the best program in its area that has one

Graduate Earnings (25 Points)

Median earnings of the school’s graduates in mechanic and repair technologies (federal field 47.06), four years after completing, or one year after where only that is published, from the U.S. Department of Education’s College Scorecard. It is read at the credential level of the program’s main award: certificate, or associate’s where the school awards at least as many associate’s degrees as certificates in the area. Scored on a dollar scale between the 5th and 95th percentile of the area’s ranked programs.

• A school-level figure: Scorecard pools every mechanic and repair program the school offers at that credential level, so an automotive figure can include diesel, collision or aviation graduates
• Scorecard reports one figure per institution, so campuses of one chain carry the same number, and each page says so
• Scorecard withholds small graduating classes; those programs score at the peer median

Completion (20 Points)

The graduation rate within 150% of normal time from the federal IPEDS survey: of the first-time, full-time students who started at the school, the share who finished a credential within one and a half times its normal length. It covers the whole institution, not only its mechanic students. Percentile among the area’s ranked programs.

• Institution-wide, first-time, full-time students; small entering classes can swing a rate toward 0% or 100%
• A school with no published rate scores at the peer median

Track Record (15 Points)

Certificates of 12 weeks or longer and associate’s degrees the school awarded from July 2024 to June 2025 in the area’s federal program codes, from the IPEDS Completions survey, on a log scale between the 5th and 95th percentile of the area’s ranked programs. Certificates under 12 weeks are left out, so a program that splits training into many short certificates does not count each one.

• A log scale keeps the largest programs from swamping the rest
• Certificates under 12 weeks and bachelor’s degrees are not counted

Program Reputation (15 Points)

Cloudflare’s Clef language model rates each program on its own, on a scale from 0 (little known to employers, even in its own region) to 4 (among the most recognized mechanic programs in the country), according to how dealerships, repair shops, fleets, airlines and the industry regard the program’s graduates and training. Every program is given the same facts and nothing else: the school, the trade, its city and state, whether it is public, private nonprofit or private for-profit, and its accreditation. No price, earnings, completion, award count or ranking is given to the model. Because each program is rated alone, a rating never depends on the programs beside it. The rating is an input to the score, not a finding about a school, and it is not a survey of employers. It is scored as a percentile among the area’s ranked programs.

• Each program is rated alone, from the same facts, by Cloudflare’s Clef model
• The facts are the school, the trade, its city and state, public or private control, and its accreditation
• No price, earnings, completion or ranking figure is given to the model
• No individual rating is printed on any page

Factors Not Used

Methodology v2 has seven factors. Two carry no weight here.

• Online Experience. Methodology v2 scores how much of a school’s teaching happens online. Mechanic training is hands-on shop work, and federal data show almost no accredited mechanic program can be finished online, so the factor would not tell programs apart. Its weight is shared among the factors that do.
• Credential Alignment. Every ranked program meets the same accreditation standard (the entry bar), so accreditation does not vary among them and is not scored twice. Its weight is shared among the other factors.

Missing Figures and Ties

A factor with no published figure for a program is scored at the median of the area’s ranked programs, at full weight, and is not shown, so a program cannot rise because a number is unpublished. Cost is stricter: a program with no price from IPEDS or the school scores at the 25th percentile of the cost bars.

A program with no price from IPEDS or the school cannot outscore the best program in its area that has one.

Ties are broken by Cost, then Graduate Earnings, then school name. Scores are shown to one decimal and programs are ordered by the unrounded score, so two programs can show the same score at different ranks.

Reading the Figures

Cost

Cost is the in-district price where a college prices that way, and the in-state price where it does not. California community colleges charge state residents a low per-unit enrollment fee, and that fee is the real price a California resident pays, so several of them score at the top of Cost.

For a school that prices a whole program, the Cost factor spreads the program’s price over a year. A program shorter than a year therefore scores on a yearly figure above what a student pays in total; every page shows the whole-program price and its length.

Graduate Earnings

Graduate Earnings is a school-level College Scorecard figure: it pools the school’s graduates across all its mechanic and repair programs at the credential level, and a chain’s campuses share one figure. It is never the earnings of one program alone.

Some schools file a program of 12 to 19 months as an associate’s degree; its earnings are read at the associate’s level because that is how the school reports the award.

Completion

Completion is the institution-wide graduation rate for first-time, full-time students, not a rate for the mechanic program.

Track Record

Certificates under 12 weeks are left out of the entry bar and of Track Record.

Independence

Sponsored listings never change a score or a rank. 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.

Lists and State Pages

Lists and state pages filter and sort the national scores; they never re-score. A list is published only when it holds at least 5 programs, a state page only when the state has at least 4 ranked programs across the four trades, and a page prints at most the top 25. A program needs at least 5 awards in its trade’s federal program codes in 2024-25 to be ranked at all.

• Auto Mechanic Schools: a program is on this list when the ASE Education Foundation accredits it in the Automobile area and it meets the entry bar.
• Diesel Mechanic Schools: a program is on this list when the ASE Education Foundation accredits it in the Medium/Heavy Duty Truck area and it meets the entry bar.
• Aviation Mechanic Schools: a program is on this list when the FAA certificates it as a Part 147 aviation maintenance technician school and it meets the entry bar.
• Auto Body and Collision Repair Schools: a program is on this list when the ASE Education Foundation accredits it in the Collision Repair and Refinishing area and it meets the entry bar.
• Automotive Associate Degrees: a program is on this list when it is a ranked automotive program and IPEDS records at least one associate’s degree it awarded in automotive technology in 2024-25.
• Diesel Mechanic Degrees: a program is on this list when it is a ranked diesel program and IPEDS records at least one associate’s degree it awarded in diesel technology in 2024-25.
• Cheapest Mechanic Schools: a program is on this list when it is a ranked program with a price reported to IPEDS for 2024-25; a school appears once, with its lowest-priced ranked program.
• Manufacturer-Sponsored Programs: a program is on this list when it is a ranked program with a manufacturer training program on its ASE Education Foundation listing or on the manufacturer’s own list of partner schools.

Version History

• Version 2.0. First edition, on Methodology v2 with federal inputs, reweighted for hands-on mechanic training.