Northwest Shoals
Community College
Public Community College in Muscle Shoals, AL. Six-year graduation rate 39%. Median 10-year earnings $33,828.
Students who entered Northwest Shoals Community College reach a median of $33,828 a decade later, a figure that trails the typical four-year outcome. Only 39% finish within six years, so roughly three in five students leave without the credential they enrolled for. Graduates leave owing a median of $10,000 — 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 0.30 — healthy (below the 0.40 threshold)
- ✓ 3-year loan default 0.0% — below national benchmark
Academics
Only 39% finish within six years, so roughly three in five students leave without the credential. Retention of 69% 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. A 13% 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.
Financial Aid
IPEDS Student Financial Aid · 2023-24 · grant and loan rates against 1,926 degree- or certificate-seeking undergraduates
At $3,054 a year on average after grant aid, cost is low here relative to most undergraduate institutions. The income table below is the number that matters — $1,356 at $0–30k versus $10,089 at $110k+. 70% of students receive grant aid, averaging $6,660 — common but not automatic. 52% of students take federal loans, a middling borrowing rate.
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 · 441 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 | $1,356 |
| $30–48k | $2,081 |
| $48–75k | $4,259 |
| $75–110k | $7,601 |
| $110k+ | $10,089 |
IPEDS Student Financial Aid · 2023-24
Federal student loans went to 995 of these 1,926 students, totalling $2,689,112 — an average of $2,703 each.
IPEDS Student Financial Aid · 2023-24
Local housing costs
Typical rents near campus (Colbert 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)