Vaughn College of Aeronautics and Technology

Key Highlights

• Founded in 1932 as the Casey Jones School of Aeronautics
• MSCHE accreditation reaffirmed in June 2026
• Main campus located beside LaGuardia Airport in Queens
• Academic focus spans engineering and technology, management, and aviation

Student Life & Environment

Vaughn serves both commuters and residential students in a professionally oriented campus environment. Student life includes clubs, activities, student government, and campus chapters of national professional organizations. These chapters can be particularly useful in the college’s specialist fields because they combine social participation with leadership development, conferences, networking, and exposure to industry. The college provides academic advising, tutoring, counseling and wellness services, financial-support guidance, veteran services, and career support. Current students use Handshake to explore jobs and internships, while career programming includes fairs, employer-engagement events, résumé and interview assistance, workshops, and site visits. These services are relevant across aviation, engineering, management, manufacturing, and transportation, although participation does not guarantee an internship or job. On-campus housing is available, but students should not assume a place is guaranteed. Vaughn describes a residence hall with suite-style rooms and shared facilities, while its published process makes housing dependent on admission, a completed application, a deposit, and remaining capacity. Resident students must select a meal plan. Because the residential community is relatively compact and the campus is in New York City, applicants should weigh the convenience and community of campus housing against its limited availability and the wider range of off-campus arrangements in Queens.

Location & Surroundings

Vaughn’s main campus is at 86-01 23rd Avenue in Flushing, Queens, immediately adjacent to LaGuardia Airport. The location gives aviation and airport-management students an unusually direct view of a major commercial-airport environment, while engineering and management students study within New York City’s broader transportation and employment market. Proximity alone does not guarantee airport access, placement, or employment, but it is a meaningful feature of the institution’s academic context. The campus is outside Manhattan and does not have a subway station at its entrance. Vaughn’s official directions route public-transport users through subway connections in Jackson Heights or along the 7 line, followed by a local bus. The M60 bus also connects the LaGuardia area with Upper Manhattan, and other Queens bus services operate nearby. Travel times can vary substantially with traffic and transfers, so commuters should test the trip at the hours when they expect to attend classes. The surrounding East Elmhurst and northern Queens setting offers access to city amenities, but students seeking a conventional, self-contained residential campus should recognize Vaughn’s compact urban character.

Costs & Career Outcomes

For 2026–2027, Vaughn lists full-time academic undergraduate tuition at $15,485 per semester and part-time tuition at $1,032 per credit. Graduate tuition is $1,071 per credit. The Aviation Training Institute has a separate tuition schedule, and additional charges can include semester, laboratory, engineering-program, application, new-student, and deposit fees. Flight instruction carries further pathway-specific costs, so aircraft-operations applicants should request a complete flight-cost estimate rather than treating base tuition as the full program price. Published 2026–2027 residence-hall rates are $6,960 per semester for a single, $5,665 for a double, and $4,975 for a triple. Meal plans range from $600 to $1,800 per semester, and residents must select one. All published fees are subject to change. Students should use the college’s net-price calculator and review institutional, federal, state, and external aid rather than comparing institutions solely by sticker price. Career preparation is integrated into the student experience through counseling, résumé and interview guidance, Handshake, internship and job-search support, employer events, and career fairs. The college emphasizes connections in aviation, aerospace, engineering, manufacturing, and transportation. These resources may be especially useful for students pursuing regulated or technical occupations, but professional licenses, flight hours, security clearances, and employer qualifications remain separate from earning a degree. No salary claim is included because a sufficiently current, independently documented figure was not verified.