Empire Beauty School-Northlake vs Interactive College of Technology-Morrow

Metric	Empire Beauty School-Northlake	Interactive College of Technology-Morrow
Undergraduate enrollment	127	117
In-state tuition	—	$11,210
Out-of-state tuition	—	$11,210
Average net price What students actually pay after aid	$16,685	$16,844
Median debt at graduation	$13,583	$10,555
Graduation rate	22.2%	40.7%
First-year retention	59.5%	48.5%
Median salary (10 yr)	$24,407	$27,065

Metric

Empire Beauty School-Northlake

Interactive College of Technology-Morrow

Undergraduate enrollment

127

117

In-state tuition

—

$11,210

Out-of-state tuition

—

$11,210

Average net price
What students actually pay after aid

$16,685

$16,844

Median debt at graduation

$13,583

$10,555

Graduation rate

22.2%

40.7%

First-year retention

59.5%

48.5%

Median salary (10 yr)

$24,407

$27,065

What the numbers say

Empire Beauty School-Northlake costs less after aid — $16,685 a year versus $16,844, a difference of $159 annually, or roughly $636 across four years.
Interactive College of Technology-Morrow graduates report higher median earnings — $27,065 against $24,407 ten years after entry.
Interactive College of Technology-Morrow graduates a larger share of its students — 40.7% versus 22.2%.
On pure return — salary divided by net price — Interactive College of Technology-Morrow comes out ahead at 1.6× versus 1.5×.

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 Interactive College of Technology-Morrow run campus visits. Spending an afternoon on each will tell you things no dataset can.