Florida Southern College
Private College in Lakeland, FL. Six-year graduation rate 71%. Median 10-year earnings $55,294.
Students who entered Florida Southern College land at a median of $55,294 a decade later, close to what most four-year schools deliver. The six-year graduation rate of 71% is well above average and the clearest sign this school holds onto its students. Debt at graduation runs to a median of $25,000, neither a bargain nor a burden.
Earnings: College Scorecard, median ten years after entry across students who received federal aid — completers and non-completers alike.
- ✓ 3-year loan default 0.0% — below national benchmark
Admissions
Florida Southern College accepts 64% of applicants, which makes it accessible to most students who meet the baseline requirements. The applicant pool is large — 10,800 in the most recent cycle — so the published rate reflects genuine competition rather than a small-sample quirk. Yield is low at 11%, so most admitted students do not end up enrolling. Read the score bands below narrowly: only 22% of enrolled first-years submitted an SAT score, and test-optional applicants are not represented in them.
Test score bands (middle 50% of submitters)
These bands describe the enrolled first-years who submitted a score, not the entering class. Where most students apply test-optional the submitters are a self-selected, higher-scoring group.
| Test | 25th–75th percentile | Submitted |
|---|---|---|
| SAT Evidence-Based Reading | 590–680 | 170 (22%) |
| SAT Math | 560–650 | |
| ACT Composite | 25–30 | 147 (19%) |
IPEDS Admissions · 2024
Apply at Florida Southern College →Academics
A 71% six-year graduation rate is the strongest academic signal on this page. First-year retention of 80% shows the cohort holds together through the hardest year. At 11:1, students get materially more instructor contact than at a typical public university. Judge these figures against other institutions of the same type — sector explains more of the variation in completion than any single campus factor. With 2,626 undergraduates, the school sits in the middle of the size distribution.
Financial Aid
IPEDS Student Financial Aid · 2023-24 · grant and loan rates against 2,607 degree- or certificate-seeking undergraduates
Average net price — what students actually pay after grant aid — is $29,384 a year, at the high end of undergraduate cost. Aid is steeply need-based: families in the $0–30k band pay $23,624 while those at $110k+ pay $33,706. 97% of students get grant aid averaging $30,428, so the published price is a poor guide to what most pay. Federal borrowing reaches 54% of students.
Entering first-year students
A different, smaller group than the rates above: full-time students in their first year of college anywhere. The grant series here also excludes the "other sources" counted in the all-undergraduate figure, so the two are not comparable.
IPEDS Student Financial Aid · 2023-24 · 640 students
Net price by family income
The same students as the headline above, limited to those who received Title IV federal aid — a narrower group, with a lower overall average. IPEDS publishes no combined figure across these bands, so they should not be averaged into one.
| Family income band | Average net price |
|---|---|
| $0–30k | $23,624 |
| $30–48k | $21,385 |
| $48–75k | $25,830 |
| $75–110k | $29,044 |
| $110k+ | $33,706 |
IPEDS Student Financial Aid · 2023-24
Federal student loans went to 1,405 of these 2,607 students, totalling $9,398,863 — an average of $6,690 each.
IPEDS Student Financial Aid · 2023-24
Local housing costs
Typical rents near campus (Polk County) — budget these against any cost-of-attendance housing estimate.
HUD Fair Market Rents (40th-percentile gross rent incl. utilities) · FY2026
Veterans & GI Bill
VA GI Bill Comparison Tool (Veterans Affairs GIDS)