Is Carrington College-Tucson Worth It?

Carrington College-Tucson runs on a single strong bet: nursing. Everything else here is a coin flip. The nursing associate degree is the one program that pays for itself, with graduates clearing more than $64,000 a year , nearly triple what the health aide certificate delivers. If you enroll for nursing and finish, the math works. If you enroll for anything else, read carefully.

The certificate programs are where the risk lives. Health and medical administrative services, medical assisting, dental support, and health aide work all land graduates below $28,000 a year, and the health aide certificate bottoms out near $19,000. Those wages sit close to or below what you could earn without the credential in Tucson's healthcare and service economy. The tradeoff is smaller debt , these certificates carry roughly $7,000 to $9,500 , so you're not buried, but you're not getting ahead either.

The bigger problem is price. You'll pay close to $40,000 a year here, and that figure barely moves with income. Families earning under $30,000 pay about $39,000. families over $110,000 pay about $44,000. There's no meaningful discount for lower-income households, which means the sticker shock hits hardest on the families least able to absorb it. Against a median earnings figure under $37,000 ten years out, that price is steep for most of the programs offered.

This school is a reasonable financial fit if you're set on nursing, will finish the associate degree, and can accept the higher debt that program carries in exchange for a real wage. For every other path here, the cost outruns the payoff. If you want a certificate in medical assisting, dental support, or health aide work, price out a community college first , you can likely earn the same credential and the same wage for a fraction of what you'll pay here.