South Texas College
Public Community College in McAllen, TX. Six-year graduation rate 44%. Median 10-year earnings $36,788.
Median earnings ten years after entry come to $36,788, below what most undergraduate institutions return — the central fact to weigh against cost here. The six-year graduation rate is 44%, meaning about three in five students who start do not finish. It also moves people — 6.9% of students climb from the bottom fifth of the income distribution to the top.
Earnings: College Scorecard, median ten years after entry across students who received federal aid — completers and non-completers alike.
- ✓ Mobility score 6.9 — top quartile among US colleges
Academics
44% graduate within six years — average, but that average still hides a large group who do not. 58% first-year retention is low enough to be the defining risk of enrolling here. The two rates sit near each other: few students who return for a second year are missing from the six-year completion figure. 13% transfer out. IPEDS does not follow them, so whether they finished elsewhere is not recorded either way. At 22:1, class sizes land in the normal range for an undergraduate institution.
Financial Aid
IPEDS Student Financial Aid · 2023-24 · grant and loan rates against 16,131 degree- or certificate-seeking undergraduates
Students pay an average of $1,844 annually, well below typical undergraduate net price. Income makes less difference than usual: $1,395 at $0–30k, $5,020 at $110k+. Grant aid reaches 70% of students at an average of $5,313.
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 · 2,450 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 | $1,395 |
| $30–48k | $1,651 |
| $48–75k | $3,841 |
| $75–110k | $5,274 |
| $110k+ | $5,020 |
IPEDS Student Financial Aid · 2023-24
Local housing costs
Typical rents near campus (Hidalgo 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)