The Evergreen
State College
Public College in Olympia, WA. Six-year graduation rate 41%. Median 10-year earnings $45,320.
Students who entered The Evergreen State College land at a median of $45,320 a decade later, close to what most four-year schools deliver. Six-year completion sits at 41%, near the national average for undergraduate institutions. Debt at graduation runs to a median of $20,500, neither a bargain nor a burden.
Earnings: College Scorecard, median ten years after entry across students who received federal aid — completers and non-completers alike.
- ✓ 3-year loan default 0.1% — below national benchmark
- ! Mobility score 0.5 — limited economic uplift documented
Admissions
With an acceptance rate of 96%, The Evergreen State College takes nearly everyone who applies. Only 1,296 students applied, so treat these rates as directional — small pools swing sharply between cycles. About 25% of admitted students enroll, a yield in the normal range. Read the score bands below narrowly: only 7% 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 | 540–663 | 21 (7%) |
| SAT Math | 495–590 | |
| ACT Composite | 23–29 | 16 (5%) |
IPEDS Admissions · 2024
Apply at The Evergreen State College →Academics
Completion is middling: 41% finish inside six years. Retention of 70% 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. At 17:1, class sizes land in the normal range for an undergraduate institution. This is a public four-year university, so read every rate on this page against that peer group specifically.
Financial Aid
IPEDS Student Financial Aid · 2023-24 · grant and loan rates against 2,042 degree- or certificate-seeking undergraduates
Students pay an average of $18,350 annually once grants are applied. Net price varies modestly by income — $22,079 at $0–30k against $28,477 at $110k+ — so the average is a fair guide for most families. Grant aid reaches 58% of students at an average of $11,464. Federal borrowing reaches 41% 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 · 355 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 | $22,079 |
| $30–48k | $22,607 |
| $48–75k | $25,723 |
| $75–110k | $27,346 |
| $110k+ | $28,477 |
IPEDS Student Financial Aid · 2023-24
Federal student loans went to 835 of these 2,042 students, totalling $6,042,610 — an average of $7,237 each.
IPEDS Student Financial Aid · 2023-24
Local housing costs
Typical rents near campus (Thurston 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)