Industrial Production Technologies/Technicians at Frank Phillips College

First-year earnings around $57,000 with roughly $12,000 in debt—based on what similar industrial production programs nationally tend to produce—suggests a workable investment for technical training. Frank Phillips College's figures come from peer institutions since this program's graduate pool is too small for the Department of Education to report separately, but a debt load representing just four months of typical first-year earnings is manageable by most standards.

The challenge here is Texas context. Similar programs across the state show a median closer to $50,500, and the range among Texas schools is enormous—from $36,500 at Lone Star to over $64,000 at Texas State Technical College. Frank Phillips sits in Borger, a small Panhandle city where the industrial job market differs sharply from Houston or Dallas-Fort Worth. Whether this program connects to local petrochemical or manufacturing employers, or whether graduates need to relocate for those higher wages, matters enormously but can't be determined from aggregate data.

The debt-to-earnings ratio looks solid on paper, but you're making decisions with borrowed averages rather than this school's actual track record. Before committing, get specifics: where do Frank Phillips graduates actually work, what do local entry-level industrial technician jobs pay, and does the program have employer partnerships that lead directly to placement? The financial structure seems reasonable if the program delivers on job connections—that's the piece you need to verify independently.