Fire Protection at Vincennes University

Vincennes University's Fire Protection associate's program shows earnings that lag significantly behind both state and national benchmarks, with graduates earning $38,326 in their first year—about $16,000 below Indiana's median and nearly $18,000 below the national median for this field. Among the three Indiana schools offering this program, it ranks in the bottom quartile, while Purdue Global graduates in the same state earn nearly double. The 11% earnings growth over four years helps somewhat, but even at year four, graduates earn $42,654, still well below what peers at other programs make right out of the gate.

The debt picture offers a partial silver lining: at $12,000, it's manageable and about $4,600 below the Indiana median for fire protection programs. This creates a debt-to-earnings ratio of 0.31, which means graduates can theoretically pay off their loans in less than four months of gross salary. However, that math doesn't change the fundamental issue that these graduates are earning substantially less than they would from competing programs in their own state.

The small sample size here matters—with fewer than 30 graduates tracked, these numbers could shift dramatically with more data. But unless you have specific geographic or career circumstances that make Vincennes the only viable option, the earnings gap is too substantial to ignore when stronger-performing programs exist nearby.