Methodology: How We Rank Aviation Maintenance Schools and Check the Data

How the Aviation Maintenance School Rankings Work

Version 2.1, updated October 9, 2026. One score per school drives every ranking on the site: the national list, each state and city ranking, and the specialty lists. A school carries the same score everywhere it appears; a state or city page simply orders its own schools by it.

Every open FAA-approved (Part 147) aviation maintenance school at the college level is scored and ranked: community colleges, technical colleges, universities, and private aviation schools. A program the school says is closing to new students is left out. High school and career center programs are listed separately as pathway programs, not ranked against colleges.

A school does not need to report to IPEDS or publish a total price to be ranked. Every open college-level school is placed on the national list and on its state and city lists.

How Measured Factors Are Scaled

Graduation rate and cost are scored by percentile across every ranked school with that figure: a school earns the share of those schools it beats, with ties counted as half. Program size is log-scaled between the smallest and largest program. Scores are national, so a school carries the same score on its state, city, and national rankings.

Graduation rate has a cap at the top of the scale. Every school at or above the 95th-percentile graduation rate among scored schools earns the full Outcomes points, so one small school that reports a 100% rate does not decide the order of everyone below it.

In this edition the cap is a 67.2% graduation rate, reached by five of the 100 ranked schools with a graduation rate.

Peer-Median Scoring for Missing Figures

Outcomes, Cost, and Scale are measured factors. When a school has no figure for one, it scores the peer median for that factor: 15 of 30 for Outcomes and 12.5 of 25 for Cost, which are percentile-scored, and the real median Scale score for Scale, which is log-scaled. Score breakdowns label these points "Peer median".

Many private aviation schools do not report to IPEDS, and many colleges price by the credit rather than the program. A city ranking has to be able to rank those schools against each other. The peer median lets a school with a missing figure be ranked without gaining or losing ground for the gap.

Score = Outcomes + Cost + Program Depth + Access + Scale (0 to 100)

A Worked Example

Take a private aviation school that does not report to IPEDS and prices by the credit. On the three measured factors it scores the peer median: 15 + 12.5 + 4.2 = 31.7 points. It states both ratings and an associate degree (14 Program Depth points), plus GI Bill approval and posted start dates (10 Access points). Its score is 31.7 + 14 + 10 = 55.7.

A school with the same options and its own figures scores above 55.7 when its graduation rate, cost, and size beat the middle of the list, and below it when they do not. The most affordable ranking lists only schools with a comparable whole-program price. A peer-median Cost score is never shown as a price.

In this edition all 204 open college-level schools are ranked, and 62 of them have a published figure for every measured factor. The 20 high school programs are listed on their state and city pages.

Program Depth and Access

Program Depth and Access are computed for every school from what it states on its own pages. An option the school does not state earns 0 points; nothing is assumed.

How Cost Is Compared

A school's own price counts when it covers the whole program for both the Airframe and Powerplant ratings. Otherwise cost is IPEDS in-state tuition for one year times the program length the school publishes, in academic years. Per-credit rates, annual rates, and single-rating prices are never compared with program totals, unless the school also publishes the credit total, in which case the math is shown.

IPEDS in-state tuition leaves out mandatory fees, and some states bill most community college charges as per-credit fees. An IPEDS tuition under $1,000 a year is treated as incomplete: the school is scored on its published cost when it has one, and otherwise has no Cost figure.

Cape Cod Community College, for example, reports $576 in tuition to IPEDS but charges $262 a credit hour in tuition and required fees, so its cost is 70 credits at that rate, $18,340.

Scale counts IPEDS aviation maintenance awards per year once per institution, so two campuses that report together are not counted twice. A program the school says is closing to new students is left out.

What the Ranking Does Not Score

• School-Reported Pass Rates. Schools publish FAA test pass rates over different periods and test mixes, so the figures are not comparable from one school to the next.
• School-Reported Job Placement Rates. Placement rates are self-reported with different definitions and follow-up windows, so they are not comparable either.
• Sponsorship or Partnership Status. A sponsored listing never changes a score, a rank, or which schools are eligible.
• Reputation Surveys. No survey or opinion input is used. Every input is a published figure.

Where the School List Comes From

The directory starts with the FAA's own list of certificated aviation maintenance technician schools, exported from the FAA AV-Info facility dashboard with the location type set to Part 147 mechanics schools. The export we use was retrieved on September 22, 2026 and holds 225 school locations.

Each location has its own FAA certificate, so a college with two airport campuses appears twice. We show the certificate number and address the FAA publishes. We never publish the personal names, emails, or phone numbers of the FAA contacts listed in the export.

How School Locations and Distances Are Mapped

School addresses were geocoded with the U.S. Census Bureau geocoder. When an address did not match, we used the Census ZIP code area centroid instead. 225 of 225 schools have coordinates; the others still appear on their state page, without distances.

Every distance on the site is a straight-line distance in miles, not driving distance. City pages measure from the principal city's Census Gazetteer point and list FAA schools within 100 miles, or the nearest three when none is that close. State pages also list schools across the border within 100 miles.

City rankings order those schools by score. When fewer than three college-level schools are that close, the nearest ranked schools out to 250 miles are added.

How Schools Are Matched to IPEDS

Tuition, graduation rates, and awards come from IPEDS, the federal college data system. We matched FAA schools to IPEDS institutions by name and city within each state, then reviewed every unmatched college by hand using FAA DBA names and known branch campuses. 102 of 225 FAA locations matched.

IPEDS reports at the institution level, so tuition and graduation rates describe the whole college, not only its aviation program. Many private FAA-approved (Part 147) schools do not report to IPEDS at all; the ranking scores them at the peer median on those factors. We track 194 IPEDS aviation maintenance programs, CIP codes 47.0607 to 47.0609, plus bachelor's and master's programs under 49.0104.

How Program Facts Are Verified

Credentials, ratings, program length, schedules, start dates, GI Bill approval, and published costs come from each school's own website. 224 schools have a verified program page. For each fact we record the page it came from and the quoted wording that supports it.

Costs are shown with the period the school gives, such as total program or per semester, because schools price differently. 53 schools publish a cost we could verify. When a school does not publish a fact, we leave it out rather than guess.

Where Pay and Job Figures Come From

Wages and employment come from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 release, at the national, state, metro, and industry levels. We use Aircraft Mechanics and Service Technicians (49-3011), Avionics Technicians (49-2091), Transportation Inspectors (53-6051).

Job growth and yearly openings come from Projections Central long-term projections for 2024 to 2034. BLS does not publish every figure for every area; when a cell is withheld, the page omits it. Pay figures describe the occupation in that area, not what any school's graduates earn.

How Airports and Employers Are Chosen

City pages cover 106 metro areas, chosen from the largest U.S. metros by Census population estimates, plus smaller metros added for their aviation maintenance activity. Airport data covers 156 commercial airports and comes from FAA enplanement and all-cargo files for calendar year 2024. An airport is assigned to a metro by its city name or, failing that, by distance of 50 miles or less.

We name 189 maintenance employers across 106 metros. Each one is listed only when a public source confirms the facility, and we record the supporting quote. We do not claim that any employer is hiring or report headcounts unless the source states them.

How FAA Rules Are Checked

Certification rules come from 14 CFR Part 65 and Part 147 on eCFR, and from FAA.gov. Our fact file holds 112 verified statements, each stored with its source link, the quoted text, and the date retrieved. Workforce figures come from FAA Civil Airmen Statistics and the ATEC Pipeline Report.

Rules change. The Part 147 rewrite of 2022, for example, removed the old fixed curriculum hours. If a regulation has changed since the retrieval date, the regulation wins.

Updates and Corrections

We update the FAA school list, IPEDS data, and BLS wages after each source publishes a new release, and every page shows the date it was last updated. If you find an error, such as a closed campus or a changed program, email hello@savomediagroup.com with the page and a source. We correct verified errors and note the date.

Sponsored listings, when present, are labeled and never change a school's data, score, or rank. See our editor and editorial standards.