+1972%
First-year retention
First-year retention at Elaine Sterling Institute rose 1972% between 2021 and 2024 (3.5% → 71.5%).
Georgia · Private for-profit · Predominantly certificates
Elaine Sterling Institute
Atlanta, Georgia. 653 undergraduate students. 2 programs in the federal Field-of-Study dataset.
ANOMALY ENGINE · NOTABLE SIGNALS
What the data flags at Elaine Sterling Institute
Short-arc shifts (recent 3-year window), peer outliers, earnings trend breaks, completion drops, enrollment cliffs, and debt-to-earnings warnings — surfaced deterministically from the federal record. Multi-decade shifts are reported separately in the Long Arc section, since 25-year tuition drift isn't really an anomaly.
-100%
3-year cohort default rate
3-year cohort default rate at Elaine Sterling Institute fell 100% between 2021 and 2024 (0.8% → 0.0%).
SECTION 01 · OUTCOMES SNAPSHOT
The numbers, vs. Georgia
Each tile compares this institution to the Georgia median for the same metric. Sub-line shows the comparison value, not an interpretation. Sparklines trace the federally available history.
—+11% · 6→8y
Georgia median $38,208$29,104
Treasury earnings · 6y post-entry88.2%
Georgia median 41.6%$6,333±0% · '12→'20
At program completion653+637% · '12→'24
latest IPEDS77.2%-26% · '12→'24
first-time, full-time—-20% · '18→'19
latest cohort—
annualSECTION 02 · EARNINGS HORIZONS
How earnings spread, 4 to 10 years after entry
Treasury tax-record earnings for federally aided students who first enrolled at this institution. Each point is a horizon from the most-recent vintage. Single median per horizon (no p25/p75 publishing).
Earnings widen with time post-entry. Selection: federal-aid recipients only — not all graduates.Methodology →
SECTION 04 · LONG ARC
Ten-plus year arc
Federally available history. Coverage varies by metric — IPEDS publishes some series only after 2009 and others only before.
Undergraduate enrollment.
Median federal student debt at exit.
-26%
Elaine Sterling Institute · retention fell
96.9% → 71.5%
+277%
Elaine Sterling Institute · undergrad enrollment rose
87 → 641
+146%
Elaine Sterling Institute · pell share rose
26.2% → 64.2%
SECTION 05 · PROGRAMS
Ranked by 5-year earnings
Each row is one (CIP × credential) program reported by the institution in College Scorecard's Field-of-Study data. Cohort floor is 30 students; below this, federal data is suppressed.
SECTION 06 · BY CIP FAMILY
1 programs with earnings, grouped
Programs are grouped by 2-digit CIP family. Programs without reported earnings are hidden to keep the list focused.
PERSONAL & CULINARY SERVICES · CIP 12
FINANCIAL OUTCOME · ILLUSTRATION
Estimate the financial outcome at Elaine Sterling Institute
Pick a program. Cost from Scorecard net price by family income; earnings from Treasury 5-year-post-completion median, projected forward with a Mincer age-earnings curve. The selection-bias toggle applies the Dale-Krueger shrinkage. Outcomes illustration, not a forecast — see methodology.
Shrinks the earnings premium toward the matched-applicant mean. STEM <15%, business ~40%, arts & education ~60%.
NET PRESENT VALUE
-$177,674
Over 40 years, discounted 5.0%
BREAKEVEN
—
Doesn’t reach breakeven within the horizon
- Cost per year
- $25,104
- HS-only baseline · GA
- $35,800
- Years to complete
- 1
- CIP family
- 12
Outcomes illustration · not a forecast. Projects observed Scorecard earnings forward with a Mincer age-earnings curve under your assumptions. See methodology for the math.
SECTION 07 · SIMILAR INSTITUTIONS
Same sector and degree mix in Georgia
Picked by Carnegie sector × predominant credential level. These are not rankings — just nearest-neighbour surfaces for comparison.
CAUSAL DISCIPLINE
“Elaine Sterling Institute graduates earn $X” — not “Elaine Sterling Institute makes you earn $X”
Median earnings describe what cohorts earned. They do not describe what attending Elaine Sterling Institute caused. Selection effects (who admits, who enrolls, who completes) are real. We publish federal data with strict descriptive phrasing — and link the methodology where you can read about the limitations directly.