H Councill
Trenholm State Community College
Public Community College in Montgomery, AL. Six-year graduation rate 16%. Median 10-year earnings $32,183.
Ten-year median earnings of $32,183 are on the low side, which raises the bar for what this degree needs to cost. The six-year graduation rate is 16% — low enough that finishing cannot be treated as the default outcome. On economic mobility, 3.2% of students travel from the bottom income quintile to the top.
Earnings: College Scorecard, median ten years after entry across students who received federal aid — completers and non-completers alike.
- ! Graduation rate 16% — below national average
Academics
Completion is the problem here: 16% graduate within six years. Just 51% of first-years come back — most of the completion gap opens in year one. The distance between those two figures is the part worth noticing — students return for a second year at a much higher rate than they graduate, so attrition here is spread across the middle years rather than concentrated in the first. A 18% transfer-out rate accounts for part of that gap: those students left for another institution rather than dropping out, and the graduation rate above counts them as non-completers here. Part-time students fare worse, returning at 33% — relevant if you plan to work while enrolled.
Financial Aid
IPEDS Student Financial Aid · 2023-24 · grant and loan rates against 1,584 degree- or certificate-seeking undergraduates
Students pay an average of $7,960 annually, well below typical undergraduate net price. The gap between the $0–30k and $75–110k bands is narrow ($7,847 versus $13,852), meaning aid is not strongly need-weighted. Grant aid reaches 82% of students at an average of $5,727.
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 · 299 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 | $7,847 |
| $30–48k | $8,263 |
| $48–75k | $11,016 |
| $75–110k | $13,852 |
| $110k+ | — |
IPEDS Student Financial Aid · 2023-24
Local housing costs
Typical rents near campus (Montgomery County) — budget these against any cost-of-attendance housing estimate.
HUD Fair Market Rents (40th-percentile gross rent incl. utilities) · FY2026
Veterans & GI Bill
Heightened Cash Monitoring (Compliance Audit Late or Missing); School placed on Heightened Cash Monitoring
VA GI Bill Comparison Tool (Veterans Affairs GIDS)