Grand Rapids
Community College
Public Community College in Grand Rapids, MI. Six-year graduation rate 21%. Median 10-year earnings $38,377.
Ten-year median earnings of $38,377 are on the low side, which raises the bar for what this degree needs to cost. Only 21% finish within six years, so roughly four in five students leave without the credential they enrolled for. Graduates leave owing a median of $9,000 — modest by four-year standards.
Earnings: College Scorecard, median ten years after entry across students who received federal aid — completers and non-completers alike.
- ✓ Debt-to-income ratio 0.23 — healthy (below the 0.40 threshold)
- ✓ 3-year loan default 0.0% — below national benchmark
- ! Mobility score 0.6 — limited economic uplift documented
- ! Graduation rate 21% — below national average
Academics
Completion is the problem here: 21% graduate within six years. 59% first-year retention is low enough to be the defining risk of enrolling here. Retention runs well ahead of completion, which means students are not leaving immediately; they are leaving somewhere between the second year and the finish line. 20% transfer out. IPEDS does not follow them, so whether they finished elsewhere is not recorded either way. The student-faculty ratio is 19:1 — typical, which in practice means large lectures early and smaller classes in the major.
Financial Aid
IPEDS Student Financial Aid · 2023-24 · grant and loan rates against 10,530 degree- or certificate-seeking undergraduates
At $9,720 a year on average after grant aid, cost is low here relative to most undergraduate institutions. The gap between the $0–30k and $110k+ bands is narrow ($7,373 versus $14,013), meaning aid is not strongly need-weighted. Grant aid reaches 61% of students at an average of $4,494. Only 16% take federal loans. Private borrowing is not captured in this figure.
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 · 1,419 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 | $7,373 |
| $30–48k | $7,292 |
| $48–75k | $8,362 |
| $75–110k | $11,582 |
| $110k+ | $14,013 |
IPEDS Student Financial Aid · 2023-24
Federal student loans went to 1,718 of these 10,530 students, totalling $6,897,732 — an average of $4,015 each.
IPEDS Student Financial Aid · 2023-24
Local housing costs
Typical rents near campus (Kent 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)