Southern State
Community College
Public Community College in Hillsboro, OH. Six-year graduation rate 37%. Median 10-year earnings $35,463.
Ten-year median earnings of $35,463 are on the low side, which raises the bar for what this degree needs to cost. Only 37% finish within six years, so roughly two in three students leave without the credential they enrolled for. Median debt at graduation is $11,457, a light load against those earnings.
Earnings: College Scorecard, median ten years after entry across students who received federal aid — completers and non-completers alike.
- ✓ Debt-to-income ratio 0.32 — healthy (below the 0.40 threshold)
- ✓ 3-year loan default 0.0% — below national benchmark
- ! Mobility score 1.0 — limited economic uplift documented
Academics
Completion is the problem here: 37% graduate within six years. First-year retention is 64% — the single largest point of attrition on this campus. 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. 13% transfer out. IPEDS does not follow them, so whether they finished elsewhere is not recorded either way. Retention drops to 52% for part-time students, a gap worth weighing if full-time study is not realistic.
Financial Aid
IPEDS Student Financial Aid · 2023-24 · grant and loan rates against 751 degree- or certificate-seeking undergraduates
Students pay an average of $9,431 annually, well below typical undergraduate net price. Income makes less difference than usual: $8,099 at $0–30k, $10,805 at $110k+. About 82% get grants averaging $5,093, so plan on the possibility of paying closer to full price. Federal borrowing reaches 35% 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 · 124 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 | $8,099 |
| $30–48k | $7,950 |
| $48–75k | $10,926 |
| $75–110k | $13,478 |
| $110k+ | $10,805 |
IPEDS Student Financial Aid · 2023-24
Federal student loans went to 264 of these 751 students, totalling $1,598,990 — an average of $6,057 each.
IPEDS Student Financial Aid · 2023-24
Local housing costs
Typical rents near campus (Highland 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)