Medical Assistants in California — what the listed programs cost and produced

1The target: Medical Assistants

Perform administrative and certain clinical duties under the direction of a physician. Administrative duties may include scheduling appointments, maintaining medical records, billing, and coding information for insurance purposes. Clinical duties may include taking and recording vital signs and medical histories, preparing patients for examination, drawing blood, and administering medications as directed by physician.

National median pay for this occupation: $45,690 a year ($21.97 an hour), 2025 figures^[S2]. Projected growth 2024-2034, Much faster than average; about 112,300 openings a year projected. This is the national median, not a California figure and not a forecast for you.

Your current pay as given at checkout: $36,000 a year (an hourly figure is converted at 2,080 hours). The payback column divides each program’s reported cost by the monthly difference between completers’ annualised median earnings and this figure.

2The programs on California’s list — 196 matched

Counted here: programs whose provider reported the occupation code 31-9092 (Medical Assistants) among its up-to-three codes. 196 of the 3,266 programs California reported to the index are in this set, 163 of them with an employment figure.

How to read the columns^[S4]: “Completed” = Percent of All Students who completed the program (DE122/DE121). “Employed Q2” = Percent of All Students Exiters who were employed in the 2nd Quarter after Exit (DE123/DE129). “Median earnings” = Median Earnings in the 2nd Quarter after Exit of All Students that are Employed in the 2nd Quarter after Exit (DE125) — one calendar quarter, not a year; the “annualised” column multiplies it by four and is our arithmetic, not the file’s. Cost basis: out-of-pocket tuition and fees for a non-WIOA participant (Out-of-Pocket Cost for a Non-WIOA Participant: Tuition and Requested Fees (DE111)) where reported, otherwise Average number of dollars the training program received from each WIOA participant Individual Training Account (ITA) during the time period (DE138/DE135). Rows are ranked by employed-Q2 percent, then completion, then earnings; programs with no employment figure sort last. “Small cohort” marks fewer than 10 exits — a percentage of a handful of people. Data on trainingproviderresults.gov are suppressed from public view when any of the following occur: Data submitted for the program contains sample sizes that are too small to protect Personally Identifiable Information (PII); No data were reported for the program; or The Department identified significant data quality issues with the state submitted data.

3How this set compares with California’s whole list

Medians of what providers reported; each is a record of past cohorts in this data window, not a forecast. Where fewer than a handful of programs reported, the median is of that handful.

4Where the funding decision is made

If you were just laid off — the clocks

5What this report cannot know

• Whether you are eligible, or what the center will fund. Your local job center decides eligibility — this shows what is on the list and what it cost and produced, not whether you will be approved.
• Whether a program is still enrolling, at what price, or on the list today. The index reflects programs approved as of June 30, 2025.
• What you would earn. Earnings are the median of one quarter for one past cohort; the payback column is arithmetic on that median and your own figure — an estimate, printed with its basis.
• Why a number is missing. “Data on trainingproviderresults.gov are suppressed from public view when any of the following occur: Data submitted for the program contains sample sizes that are too small to protect Personally Identifiable Information (PII); No data were reported for the program; or The Department identified significant data quality issues with the state submitted data.”

SSources

1. [S1] O*NET 30.3 Database, U.S. Department of Labor/ETA (Occupation Data, Related Occupations, Job Zones files). Licensed CC BY 4.0. — https://www.onetcenter.org/database.html · accessed 2026-08-15 · This report includes information from the O*NET 30.3 Database by the USDOL/ETA. O*NET is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. RetrainMap is not endorsed by USDOL.
2. [S2] PLACEHOLDER — rewritten at render time — https://www.onetonline.org/link/summary/<code> · accessed 2026-09-02
3. [S3] U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration — Training Provider Results (state ETP performance reports, form ETA-9171): the open program index behind trainingproviderresults.gov, snapshot taken 2026-09-02 (70,088 programs, all states; SHA-256 7c13d4e70dbf…). — https://www.trainingproviderresults.gov/ · accessed 2026-09-02 · Data on this website reflect training programs approved to be on states’ ETP list as of June 30, 2025, covering the period from July 1, 2021, through June 30, 2025. The data displayed on this site are from annual state submissions that occur each year for state Eligible Training Provider (ETP) Performance Reports (form ETA-9171).
4. [S4] TrainingProviderResults.gov Data Dictionary, version 4.0, updated 5/15/2024 (PDF) — https://www.trainingproviderresults.gov/assets/ETP_Data_Dictionary.pdf · accessed 2026-09-02 · Column definitions in this report are quoted from it; a −1 in the federal file is printed as a dash.
5. [S5] 20 CFR 680.210 — Who may receive training services? (eCFR, title 20 up to date as of 2026-08-31) — https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-20/chapter-V/part-680/subpart-B/section-680.210 · accessed 2026-09-02 · Under WIOA sec. 134(c)(3)(A) training services may be made available to employed and unemployed adults and dislocated workers who: (a) A one-stop center or one-stop partner determines, after an interview, evaluation, or assessment, and career planning, are: (1) Unlikely or unable to obtain or retain employment that leads to economic self-sufficiency or wages comparable to or higher than wages from previous employment through career services; (2) In need of training services to obtain or retain employment leading to economic self-sufficiency or wages comparable to or higher than wages from previous employment; and (3) Have the skills and qualifications to participate successfully in training services; (b) Select a program of training services that is directly linked to the employment opportunities in the local area or the planning region, or in another area to which the individuals are willing to commute or relocate; (c) Are unable to obtain grant assistance from other sources to pay the costs of such training, including such sources as State-funded training funds, Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA), and Federal Pell Grants established under title IV of the Higher Education Act of 1965, or require WIOA assistance in addition to other sources of grant assistance, including Federal Pell Grants (provisions relating to fund coordination are found at § 680.230 and WIOA sec. 134(c)(3)(B)); and (d) If training services are provided through the adult funding stream, are determined eligible in accordance with the State and local priority system in effect for adults under WIOA sec. 134(c)(3)(E) and § 680.600.
6. [S6] American Job Center finder, CareerOneStop (U.S. Department of Labor) — state-filtered listing — California. — https://www.careeronestop.org/LocalHelp/AmericanJobCenters/find-american-job-centers.aspx?location=California · accessed 2026-09-02
7. [S7] WIOA-Eligible Training Program Finder, CareerOneStop (U.S. Department of Labor) — 'find your state's directory of WIOA-eligible training programs' — California. — https://www.careeronestop.org/LocalHelp/EmploymentAndTraining/find-WIOA-training-programs.aspx?location=California · accessed 2026-09-02
8. [S8] HealthCare.gov — Special Enrollment Period (Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services) — https://www.healthcare.gov/coverage-outside-open-enrollment/special-enrollment-period/ · accessed 2026-09-02
9. [S9] COBRA Continuation Coverage — U.S. Department of Labor, Employee Benefits Security Administration — https://www.dol.gov/agencies/ebsa/laws-and-regulations/laws/cobra · accessed 2026-09-02

RetrainMap Retraining ROI Report (US) · v0.1 (2026-09-02) · Generated by RetrainMap’s software from the public datasets listed above; no figure is typed by hand. 14-day no-questions refund. Questions: [email protected]