CURTIS, Neb. — Graduates from the Nebraska College of Technical Agriculture can see college investment paying off when checking their payroll deposits.

In 2017, the college in Curtis, Neb., was ranked first in the nation by WalletHub.com for “career outcomes” when compared against other U.S. two-year colleges, said Ron Rosati, NCTA dean.

Career outcomes is determined primarily by calculating the ratio of starting salary for graduates to cost of education, he said. Default rate on educational loans is also considered in the evaluation by national firms.

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“The bottom line for students and their families is that NCTA provides high-quality academic programs with a focus on hands-on learning, and does so at a very affordable overall cost,” Rosati said.

NCTA’s mission is to provide Nebraska’s agricultural community with access to a cost-effective college education which leads to successful careers.

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“This national recognition is one of many received by the college in 2017 documenting that the faculty and staff at NCTA are doing an outstanding job accomplishing that mission,” he said.

NCTA students pay $127.50 per credit hour. More than 70 percent of NCTA students receive a financial aid package of grant and scholarship awards which exceeds the cost of tuition and fees, Rosati said. See https://ncta.unl.edu/cost-attendance for the breakdown of total annual costs and fees.

“Our Aggie students work very hard in their classes,” Rosati said. “They earn their education and that diligence, leadership and maturity goes a long way into successful careers — whether as employees in industry or in their own farming and ranching businesses.”

WalletHub, a personal finance website, annually measures quality and affordability of more than 700 trade schools and two-year colleges in the U.S. The group ranked NCTA 1st of 728 schools in the comparison of salary and cost of education.

Overall, WalletHub ranked NCTA 17th among community colleges and institutions measured in three categories: cost and financing, education outcomes and career outcomes. See https://wallethub.com/edu/best-worst-community-colleges/15076/. Other notable awards and rankings for NCTA have included:

· 2017 Reserve Champion two-Year Team at North American Colleges and Teachers of Agriculture contest

· Top 30 Trade School in U.S. — Forbes Magazine

· Top Nebraska two-year college and 7th in U.S. for job placement (employed 10-plus years) — Zippia.com

· Top 10 percent of two-year colleges — Aspen Institute

· Top Associate Degree Producer — Community College Week

“The national assessments in the last two years, in particular, point to the Nebraska College of Technical Agriculture having all the right components for developing a successful student. Our goal is education and workforce development,” Rosati said.

External reviews use a variety of federal data to measure college outcomes such as personal income derived from tax filings, College Scoreboard, and statistics from the U.S. Department of Education’s Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (https://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/).

NCTA is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission. Additional information is available at ncta.unl.edu or call 1-800-3CURTIS.