Empire Beauty School-Northlake vs Gwinnett College-Lilburn

Metric	Empire Beauty School-Northlake	Gwinnett College-Lilburn
Undergraduate enrollment	127	156
In-state tuition	—	$11,300
Out-of-state tuition	—	$11,300
Average net price What students actually pay after aid	$16,685	$30,175
Median debt at graduation	$13,583	$18,062
Graduation rate	22.2%	58.3%
First-year retention	59.5%	60.0%
Median salary (10 yr)	$24,407	$31,422

Metric

Empire Beauty School-Northlake

Gwinnett College-Lilburn

Undergraduate enrollment

127

156

In-state tuition

—

$11,300

Out-of-state tuition

—

$11,300

Average net price
What students actually pay after aid

$16,685

$30,175

Median debt at graduation

$13,583

$18,062

Graduation rate

22.2%

58.3%

First-year retention

59.5%

60.0%

Median salary (10 yr)

$24,407

$31,422

What the numbers say

Empire Beauty School-Northlake costs less after aid — $16,685 a year versus $30,175, a difference of $13,490 annually, or roughly $53,960 across four years.
Gwinnett College-Lilburn graduates report higher median earnings — $31,422 against $24,407 ten years after entry.
Gwinnett College-Lilburn graduates a larger share of its students — 58.3% versus 22.2%.
On pure return — salary divided by net price — Empire Beauty School-Northlake comes out ahead at 1.5× versus 1.0×.

How to actually choose

Comparison tables are a starting point, not a decision. Three things matter more than anything in the table above:

Your real aid offer. Net price is an average across all income levels. Two students at the same school can pay amounts that differ by tens of thousands. Wait for actual award letters before ruling anything out on cost.
Your intended major. Earnings vary more between majors at one school than between schools for one major. A computer science graduate from the "lower earning" school here will likely out-earn a general studies graduate from the other.
Whether you will finish. Graduation rate is the metric most predictive of whether the money spent turns into a credential. Campus fit, support services, and commute all feed into it more than prestige does.

Visit before you commit

Both Empire Beauty School-Northlake and Gwinnett College-Lilburn run campus visits. Spending an afternoon on each will tell you things no dataset can.