Georgia Career Institute vs Paul Mitchell the School-Esani

Metric	Georgia Career Institute	Paul Mitchell the School-Esani
Undergraduate enrollment	515	359
Average net price What students actually pay after aid	$14,966	$18,522
Median debt at graduation	$7,735	$9,833
Graduation rate	69.0%	76.5%
First-year retention	76.5%	71.4%
Median salary (10 yr)	$23,686	$26,287

Metric

Georgia Career Institute

Paul Mitchell the School-Esani

Undergraduate enrollment

515

359

Average net price
What students actually pay after aid

$14,966

$18,522

Median debt at graduation

$7,735

$9,833

Graduation rate

69.0%

76.5%

First-year retention

76.5%

71.4%

Median salary (10 yr)

$23,686

$26,287

What the numbers say

Georgia Career Institute costs less after aid — $14,966 a year versus $18,522, a difference of $3,556 annually, or roughly $14,224 across four years.
Paul Mitchell the School-Esani graduates report higher median earnings — $26,287 against $23,686 ten years after entry.
Paul Mitchell the School-Esani graduates a larger share of its students — 76.5% versus 69.0%.
On pure return — salary divided by net price — Georgia Career Institute comes out ahead at 1.6× versus 1.4×.

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 Georgia Career Institute and Paul Mitchell the School-Esani run campus visits. Spending an afternoon on each will tell you things no dataset can.