by our College Data Analytics Team
College Factual analyzes over 2,000 colleges and universities in its annual rankings and ranks them in a variety of ways, including most diverse, best overall quality, best for non-traditional students, and much more.
Lake Area Technical Institute was awarded 61 badges in the 2025 rankings. The highest ranked major at the school is agriculture & agriculture operations.
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LATI is ranked #274 out of 2,152 schools in the nation for overall quality on College Factual's 2025 Best Colleges list. This puts it in the top 20% of all schools in the nation. This is an improvement over the previous year, when LATI held the #297 spot on the Best Overall Colleges list.
LATI also holds the #1 spot on the Best Colleges in South Dakota ranking.
Since Lake Area Technical Institute has an open admissions policy, being accepted to the school isn't that hard. However, a full basic things - such as a high school diploma or equivalent - may be required. Also, go over your application to make sure it is complete before you submit it.
With a student to faculty ratio of 17 to 1, Lake Area Technical Institute is about average in this regard as the nationwide rate is 15 to 1. While this does not translate directly to class size, it's a good indicator of how much time professors will have to spend with their students on a one-on-one basis.
Another measure that is often used to estimate how much access students will have to their professors is how many faculty members are full-time. The idea here is that part-time faculty tend to spend less time on campus, so they may not be as available to students as full-timers.
The full-time faculty percentage at Lake Area Technical Institute is 73%. This is higher than the national average of 47%.
Lake Area Technical Institute has a freshmen retention rate of 81%. That's a good sign that full-time students like the school and their professors enough to want to stick around for another year. It's also a sign that the admissions team did a good job in choosing applicants who were a good fit for the school.
During the 2017-2018 academic year, there were 2,217 undergraduates at LATI with 1,509 being full-time and 708 being part-time.
| $0-30 K | $30K-48K | $48-75 | $75-110K | $110K + |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $10,663 | $11,275 | $14,720 | $16,423 | $16,687 |
The net price is calculated by adding tuition, room, board and other costs and subtracting financial aid.Note that the net price is typically less than the published for a school. For more information on the sticker price of LATI, see our tuition and fees and room and board pages.
It's not uncommon for college students to take out loans to pay for school. In fact, almost 66% of students nationwide depend at least partially on loans. At LATI, approximately 84% of students took out student loans averaging $6,031 a year. That adds up to $24,124 over four years for those students.
The student loan default rate at LATI is 1.0%. This is significantly lower than the national default rate of 10.1%, which is a good sign that you'll be able to pay back your student loans.
Get more details about paying for Lake Area Technical Institute.
See which majors at Lake Area Technical Institute make the most money.
Get more details about the location of Lake Area Technical Institute.
Contact details for LATI are given below.
| Contact Details | |
|---|---|
| Address: | 1201 Arrow Avenue, Watertown, SD 57201-0730 |
| Phone: | 605-882-5284 |
| Website: | www.lakeareatech.edu/ |
| Most Popular Majors | Bachelor’s Degrees | Average Salary of Graduates |
|---|---|---|
| Vehicle Maintenance & Repair | 130 | NA |
| Agricultural Economics & Business | 83 | NA |
| Practical Nursing & Nursing Assistants | 77 | NA |
| Precision Metal Working | 74 | NA |
| Human Services | 49 | NA |
| Allied Health & Medical Assisting Services | 41 | NA |
| Marketing | 37 | NA |
| Computer Science | 32 | NA |
| Dental Support Services | 29 | NA |
| Cosmetology | 29 | NA |
Online learning is becoming popular at even the oldest colleges and universities in the United States. Not only are online classes great for returning adults with busy schedules, they are also frequented by a growing number of traditional students.
In 2022-2023, 1,137 students took at least one online class at Lake Area Technical Institute. This is an increase from the 958 students who took online classes the previous year.
| Year | Took at Least One Online Class | Took All Classes Online |
|---|---|---|
| 2022-2023 | 1,137 | 499 |
| 2021-2022 | 958 | 526 |
| 2020-2021 | 978 | 456 |
| 2018-2019 | 718 | 291 |
Learn more about online learning at Lake Area Technical Institute.
Footnotes
*The racial-ethnic minorities count is calculated by taking the total number of students and subtracting white students, international students, and students whose race/ethnicity was unknown. This number is then divided by the total number of students at the school to obtain the racial-ethnic minorities percentage.
References
More about our data sources and methodologies.