Community college
Public two-year institutions, where tuition is a fraction of a four-year and the transfer path is the thing to get right.
- $597Institutions of this kind on this site
- $15,161Median published cost of attendance, a year
- $7,818Median net price for students receiving federal aid
- $4,560Median in-state tuition and fees
- $9,280Median out-of-state tuition and fees
- $10,500Median debt of borrowers who completed
- $40,081Median earnings ten years after entry
Two years here followed by two years at a public four-year is the cheapest route to a bachelor's degree in most states, and it works only if the credits transfer. Articulation agreements between specific pairs of institutions are what make that certain; a general assurance that credits transfer is not the same thing.
Federal borrowing limits are the same as at a four-year, so a student at a community college can often cover the whole cost without approaching them.
What these medians are
Medians across the $597 institutions of this kind in the committed snapshot, computed here rather than published by anybody. A median is used rather than a mean because a handful of very expensive institutions pull an average somewhere no real student pays.
The net price figure is the Department's, and it covers first-time, full-time undergraduates receiving federal aid only. It is not the average across everybody.
Sources
- College Scorecard, most recent institution-level data, U.S. Department of Education. Figures describe 2025-26. Collected automatically on , so nobody checked this row by hand.