Registered Nursing, Nursing Administration, Nursing Research and Clinical Nursing at Madison Area Technical College

Madison Area Technical College's nursing program lands in an interesting middle ground: it beats the Wisconsin median for earnings by a comfortable margin (60th percentile statewide), yet trails the national median by about $2,000 annually. The real advantage here is on the debt side—graduates carry $26,235 compared to Wisconsin's $19,000 median, but that's still well below the national average. With a 0.39 debt-to-earnings ratio, new nurses clear their debt burden in under five months of gross pay, which is manageable by any standard.

The $66,446 starting salary positions graduates solidly in the middle of Wisconsin's nursing market, though notably behind top-performing technical colleges like Herzing ($73,342) and Blackhawk ($69,492). That $3,000-7,000 gap matters when you're comparing in-state options—it's the difference between an extra car payment or not. Still, this salary provides a stable foundation for a nursing career, and the program's robust sample size (100+ graduates tracked) means these numbers aren't statistical flukes.

For parents weighing community college nursing programs, MATC delivers reasonable value despite not being Wisconsin's strongest performer. The debt load is higher than ideal for a technical college, but the earnings still support comfortable repayment. If your student has offers from Blackhawk or Milwaukee Area Tech, those warrant serious consideration. If not, MATC remains a viable path into nursing without the catastrophic debt that plagues bachelor's-level programs.