Pennsylvania State
University-World Campus
Public College in University Park, PA. Six-year graduation rate 35%. Median 10-year earnings $63,435.
Ten-year median earnings of $63,435 are the headline number here, and they are strong ones. The six-year graduation rate is 35% — low enough that finishing cannot be treated as the default outcome. Graduates carry a median of $25,000 in debt — in line with the national norm.
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
Admission is not the constraint here: 91% of applicants are accepted. The applicant pool is small at 1,198, which makes year-over-year comparisons unreliable. Yield sits at 31% — the remainder of admitted students enroll elsewhere or not at all. Read the score bands below narrowly: only 12% 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 | 560–680 | 40 (12%) |
| SAT Math | 530–655 | |
| ACT Composite | 26–32 | 7 (2%) |
IPEDS Admissions · 2024
Academics
Only 35% finish within six years, so roughly two in three students leave without the credential. Retention of 66% means a meaningful slice of each entering class does not return. That gap between coming back and finishing is where this school loses people — after the first year, not during it. At 16:1, class sizes land in the normal range for an undergraduate institution. Judge these figures against other institutions of the same type — sector explains more of the variation in completion than any single campus factor.
Financial Aid
IPEDS Student Financial Aid · 2023-24 · grant and loan rates against 7,554 degree- or certificate-seeking undergraduates
Net price lands at $19,314 a year on average, neither cheap nor punishing. Aid is steeply need-based: families in the $0–30k band pay $16,372 while those at $110k+ pay $26,078. About 61% get grants averaging $7,008, so plan on the possibility of paying closer to full price. Federal borrowing reaches 43% 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 · 200 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 | $16,372 |
| $30–48k | $17,144 |
| $48–75k | $19,337 |
| $75–110k | $23,852 |
| $110k+ | $26,078 |
IPEDS Student Financial Aid · 2023-24
Federal student loans went to 3,270 of these 7,554 students, totalling $26,205,428 — an average of $8,014 each.
IPEDS Student Financial Aid · 2023-24
Local housing costs
Typical rents near campus (Centre 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)