Hudson County
Community College
Public Community College in Jersey City, NJ. Six-year graduation rate 26%. Median 10-year earnings $34,333.
Ten-year median earnings of $34,333 are on the low side, which raises the bar for what this degree needs to cost. Completion is the weak point: 26% graduate within six years. Borrowing stays contained, with median debt at graduation of $10,500. Mobility is where this school separates itself: 4.0% of students move 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.
- ✓ Debt-to-income ratio 0.31 — healthy (below the 0.40 threshold)
- ✓ 3-year loan default 0.0% — below national benchmark
- ! Graduation rate 26% — below national average
Academics
Only 26% finish within six years, so roughly three in four students leave without the credential. Retention of 61% means a meaningful slice of each entering class does not return. 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. The part-time picture is harder: 43% return, against 61% full-time. At 21:1, class sizes land in the normal range for an undergraduate institution.
Financial Aid
IPEDS Student Financial Aid · 2023-24 · grant and loan rates against 6,378 degree- or certificate-seeking undergraduates
Students pay an average of $7,528 annually, well below typical undergraduate net price. Aid is steeply need-based: families in the $0–30k band pay $6,864 while those at $110k+ pay $15,348. 73% of students receive grant aid, averaging $6,827 — common but not automatic. Only 3% 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 · 1,243 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 | $6,864 |
| $30–48k | $6,634 |
| $48–75k | $8,858 |
| $75–110k | $11,396 |
| $110k+ | $15,348 |
IPEDS Student Financial Aid · 2023-24
Federal student loans went to 212 of these 6,378 students, totalling $1,113,561 — an average of $5,253 each.
IPEDS Student Financial Aid · 2023-24
Local housing costs
Typical rents near campus (Hudson 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)