Is Southern Technical College Worth It?

Southern Technical College carries a financial return that does not add up. You pay a net price of roughly $23,000 a year, but ten years after enrolling the median earnings sit under $30,000 annually. For a two-year program, that means your first-year cost alone rivals what you can expect to earn in a full year of work afterward.

The programs here are all associate-level, and none of them clear a strong earnings bar. Electrical and electronics maintenance and repair is the best of the group at roughly $31,000, and if you enroll, that is the field to target. Electrical and communications engineering technology lands close behind but comes with about $20,000 in debt, nearly double the school's median. The health tracks are where the numbers fall apart: allied health and medical assisting pays under $20,000, and health and medical administrative services sits near $16,000. Those two programs leave you earning close to what a full-time minimum-wage job pays in Florida.

The specific risk here is the mismatch between what you pay and what you earn. You can graduate at a decent rate, take on modest debt, and still land in a job that barely covers your cost of attendance. Because the school is for-profit and two-year, you get associate credentials competing in Orlando's healthcare and technical labor market against community-college graduates who paid far less.

The net price barely moves across income brackets, so families earning under $30,000 pay nearly as much as families earning over $110,000. If you are a lower-income family, this school offers little price relief. Consider it only if you are set on the electrical maintenance track and can attend at low or no debt. For the health programs, a public community college in the region will almost certainly cost you less for similar or better pay.