Is Coastal Alabama Community College Worth It?

Coastal Alabama Community College gives you a low-cost path with a modest payoff, and where you land depends heavily on your program. At $9,514 a year with median debt of $11,000, you are not taking on much risk on paper. But the median graduate earns under $35,000 a decade out, and only about a quarter of students finish. That combination is the core problem here: the price is low, but so is the return for most, and finishing is far from guaranteed.

The nursing associate degree is the clear winner. It pays roughly $52,000, about $17,000 more than the school's median, and that gap covers the slightly higher debt nurses carry. Industrial production technology follows at just over $41,000, which fits the shipbuilding and manufacturing employers around Mobile and Baldwin County. Computer and information sciences lands near $37,000. Business administration sits at the bottom around $29,685 , below the school median , so a two-year business degree here is the weakest financial bet on the list.

The main risk is the 26% graduation rate. If you enroll and don't finish, you carry cost and lost time with no credential to show for it, and that is what happens to most students who start.

This school works for you if you enter a career-track program , nursing, industrial tech, or IT , and commit to finishing. If you want a general business or transfer path, weigh it carefully or plan to move on to a four-year degree.

On price, families earning under $30,000 pay about $7,000 a year, and the aid structure actually flattens the cost as income rises: households above $110,000 pay roughly $13,000, less than the $48-75k tier's $11,551 would suggest. Lower-income families get the better deal here.