Air Transportation at South Dakota State University

At $23,573 in estimated debt against first-year earnings around $43,000, this aviation program appears to track closely with national benchmarks—both the debt load and earnings fall near what's typical across the country's 120 similar programs. That debt-to-earnings ratio of 0.55 suggests graduates would likely devote a manageable portion of their initial salary to loan payments, assuming they land aviation jobs promptly after graduation.

The challenge is that South Dakota State is one of only two schools offering this bachelor's in the state, and neither has enough graduates for the Department of Education to report actual outcomes data. What we're seeing here are estimates drawn from peer programs nationally. The aviation industry is notoriously dependent on factors like pilot demand cycles, airline hiring freezes, and where graduates are willing to relocate—variables that can make a South Dakota program's outcomes look quite different from the national picture.

For families considering this investment, the real question centers on SDSU's specific aviation infrastructure, industry connections, and job placement support. With such a small cohort, individual student success may hinge more on those program-specific factors than on what national data suggests is typical. Before committing, verify where recent graduates actually ended up working and how quickly they secured positions, since that ground-level detail matters more than broad national patterns when dealing with a specialized field and a small program.