Electrical Engineering Technologies/Technicians at Tidewater Community College

Tidewater Community College's Electrical Engineering Technologies certificate punches well above its weight, with graduates earning $57K their first year out—nearly $9K more than the Virginia median and $18K above the national benchmark. While the small sample size means these figures could shift, the program's ranking at the 60th percentile statewide suggests consistent performance, roughly matching what Danville Community College achieves.

The financial equation here is remarkably clean: graduates carry just under $15K in debt, which represents only 3.6 months of their first-year earnings. That's substantially lower debt than you'd typically see for these earnings, placing the program in the 5th percentile nationally for student borrowing. For a community college certificate that gets students into the workforce quickly, this combination of above-average earnings and minimal debt load is exactly what you want to see.

The one caution is the small graduating class, which makes it harder to project whether future students will see similar outcomes. However, given that 29% of Tidewater's students receive Pell grants and still achieve these earnings levels, the program appears to deliver solid value across economic backgrounds. For families looking at technical career paths in the Hampton Roads area, this represents a low-cost, quick entry into well-paying electrical technology work.