About This Site

Most paralegal program lists ask you to trust them, and many call ABA approval "accreditation" along the way. This site is built so you do not have to trust it: every program comes from a public list, every figure has a named source, and the model that orders them is three numbers you can look up yourself.

Meet Trevor Rupe

How A Program Gets Onto This Site

Two lists, neither of them an editorial pick. The first is the ABA's directory of approved paralegal education programs, 220 programs on the version dated September 30, 2026. The second is the federal record of every school that awarded a paralegal credential in the 2023-24 academic year. A school on either is here, 497 in all. No school can be added by asking or left out by request, and a school that has closed or stopped enrolling stays listed with its notice and leaves every ranked list.

Each ABA entry is matched to its federal record by name and state, and by hand, with a recorded reason, where the two lists name a school differently. 170 of the 220 are ranked at some level; the rest are listed, never scored on a guess.

What The Ranking Measures

Tuition and fees, at 40%. Graduation rate, at 30%. Paralegal graduates, at 30%. Only ABA-approved programs are ranked, each award level separately, and campus programs are compared within their own state while online programs are compared nationally on the out-of-state price. The methodology sets out every step, including what was left out and why.

What We Will Not Do

• No school pays for a position. Schools can buy the sponsored listings, which are ads, but a listing is not scored or ranked and cannot move a program up or down.
• No reputation surveys. Nobody is polled about which programs they respect.
• No invented figures. Every number came from the ABA, IPEDS, College Scorecard, BLS, a certifying body, a statute or court, or a school's own page, and the source is named where it appears.
• No filling gaps with estimates. A program missing a figure is listed without a score, because a low score would imply we measured it.
• No "ABA-accredited" or "ABA-certified". The ABA approves programs; it does not accredit schools or certify people.

Who Publishes This Site

Best Paralegal Certification is published by Savo Media Group. Savo Media Group is Trevor Rupe and Taylor Rupe, who research and publish data-led education guides like this one. Taylor sets the direction the sites are researched and written to; Trevor edits this one and answers for what is on it.

Nobody pays to appear in the rankings. No school, certifying body or bar association has any say in what is published, and that includes the schools that buy sponsored listings. Those listings, served by the education ad network Esyoh, are how the site earns its money: schools pay to appear in them, and the site earns a commission through their affiliate links. They are ads, they sit outside the rankings, and buying one cannot move a program by a single place. The rankings are reproducible from the sources on the methodology page, which is the only argument for trusting them that this site is willing to make.

Corrections

The ABA updates its directory every February and August, schools change their programs and prices, and certifying bodies revise their rules. Every program card links the school, and every rule links its source, so a disagreement is usually settled in a minute. If something is wrong, write to hello@savomediagroup.com with the page and the figure. Corrections are made to the underlying data, which changes the score, rather than to the wording around it.

How This Site Is Funded

This site earns commissions from sponsored school listings, served by the education ad network Esyoh. Those listings are ads: schools pay to appear in them, they are not scored or ranked, and no listing can change a ranking. Rankings, ABA approval, wage data and program details come from official records and each school's own published pages, and are reported the same way whether or not a school advertises.