Trade School Insider

Editorial Policy

Last updated: January 2025

Editorial Independence

Rankings, recommendations, and school reviews on Trade School Insider are not influenced by affiliate commissions, advertising budgets, or school relationships. Schools cannot pay for placement or improved ranking. Our editorial process operates independently of all commercial relationships.

Research Methodology

Every school review and ranking follows this process:

  1. Accreditation verification — verified through DAPIP (ope.ed.gov/dapip), the U.S. Department of Education's database of accredited programs. Unaccredited programs are excluded.
  2. Tuition and program data — sourced directly from school admissions pages. Each source is linked and dated. Secondary sources (other blogs or aggregator sites) are not used as sole citations.
  3. Salary data — from the BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook and BLS Occupational Employment Statistics. Survey year is always cited.
  4. Job outlook projections — from BLS 10-year employment projections, cited with projection period.
  5. Student reviews — cross-referenced across multiple platforms. Outlier reviews are contextualized.
  6. Tradesperson quotes — sourced from Reddit (r/Welding, r/HVAC, r/electricians) and LinkedIn. Each quote includes: full first name, trade, years of experience, and explicit permission to publish. Quotes are never edited for meaning, only lightly edited for clarity.

Fact-Checking Standards

Every statistic requires a primary source link. We do not use other websites, blogs, or aggregators as sole citations for salary, employment, or growth figures. The Bureau of Labor Statistics, NCES, and accreditation databases are our primary data authorities.

Trade-specific certification data (AWS, NATE, EPA 608, NICET, state licensing boards) is sourced from the respective credentialing organizations, not third-party summaries.

Update Policy

  • Salary and job outlook data is refreshed every October after the annual BLS data release.
  • School listings (tuition, program length, accreditation status) are reviewed annually.
  • The "Last updated" date in each article byline is changed only when substantive content changes are made — not on minor edits.
  • The Article schema dateModified field is updated on every substantive change.

Corrections Policy

If you find a factual error — incorrect salary figure, wrong accreditation status, outdated tuition, or any other verifiable mistake — please email hello@bikashroy.com with the page URL and the specific error.

  • Factual errors are corrected within 48 hours of being reported and verified.
  • Minor corrections (typos, outdated figures with correct replacements) are made silently.
  • Significant factual corrections are noted at the bottom of the article with the correction date and nature of the change.

Affiliate Relationship Disclosure

Some links on this site earn a referral commission if you enroll or request information from a school. This is disclosed at the top of every page containing affiliate links. Affiliate relationships are disclosed in full on our affiliate disclosure page.

Affiliate commissions do not influence which schools are ranked, how they are ranked, or what is written about them.

Contact the Editorial Team

For corrections, research questions, or editorial inquiries: hello@bikashroy.com or via our contact form.