by our College Data Analytics TeamMost students will not be asked to pay the advertised price of a school. Instead, they will be provided a financial aid package that will include a combination of scholarships, grants, loans, and work-study. The total cost of going to Macalester College can seem tremendous, but do not forget that almost all students are given some form of financial help.
What financial assistance options will Macalester offer, and what will you qualify for? Read on for more information. Keep going to discover how much school funding could be available to you.
The amount of financial aid you can receive varies from person to person and will depend on your family’s economic situation. Read on to get a sense of the financial assistance available at Macalester College.
Through a mix of loans, grants, work-study and scholarships, schools bring down the effective cost so more students can attend. Bear in mind that not all aid is equal, and the amount any one student receives can vary widely.
Looking at the entering class at Macalester College, 89% of first-time, full-time freshmen received some form of financial aid around 463 freshmen).
| Type of Aid | % of Freshmen Receiving | Average Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Grant or scholarship aid (all sources) | 87% | $42,766 |
| Institutional grants & scholarships | 87% | $41,439 |
| Federal Pell grants | 13% | $5,706 |
| State/local grants | 5% | $6,776 |
| Federal student loans | 27% | $4,928 |
The best aid is gift aid: grants and scholarships that carry no repayment obligation. At this school, about 88% of undergrads got grants or scholarships worth on average $42,615 (across approximately 1892 recipients).
| Award | % of Undergrads Receiving | Average Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Grant or scholarship aid (all sources) | 88% | $42,615 |
| Federal Pell grants | 17% | $5,598 |
| Federal student loans | 36% | $6,043 |
Among title-IV aid recipients living on campus, grant and scholarship aid averaged $50,842.
Need-based aid means lower-income families typically pay far less than the sticker price suggests.
| Family Income | Average Net Price |
|---|---|
| $0 – $48,000 | $12,233 |
| $30,001 – $75,000 | $12,316 |
| Over $75,000 | $40,273 |
The numbers above are post-aid net prices, so they already account for grants and scholarships.
Net price is the average annual cost after grants and scholarships are subtracted from the published cost of attendance — the figure closest to what a typical aid-receiving student actually pays.
| Cohort | Average Net Price |
|---|---|
| On-campus title-IV students | $32,149 |
| Off-campus title-IV students | $29,980 |
To project your own net price, use Macalester’s official net price calculator: www.macalester.edu/financialaid/estimate/.
The median federal debt load at Macalester comes to $19,500 of cumulative federal debt.
| Metric | Amount |
|---|---|
| Median federal debt (all student-aid borrowers) | $19,500 |
| Median federal debt (graduates only) | $23,000 |
| Typical 10-year monthly payment (graduates) | $243.84/mo |
The 10-year payment estimate assumes a standard federal repayment plan and the median graduate debt amount.
The numbers below show the full range, not just the middle of the distribution. The percentiles below describe the cumulative federal debt distribution for borrowers at Macalester.
| Percentile | Cumulative Federal Debt |
|---|---|
| 10th percentile (lowest-debt students) | $5,500 |
| 25th percentile | $11,979 |
| 75th percentile | $27,000 |
| 90th percentile (highest-debt students) | $30,372 |
The figures below break down median federal debt by income tier, first-generation status, and dependency.
Debt by Income Tier
| Income tier | Median federal debt |
|---|---|
| Low income | $18,912 |
| Middle income | $19,000 |
| High income | $19,500 |
First-Gen vs Continuing-Gen Median Debt
| Cohort | Median federal debt |
|---|---|
| First-generation students | $20,000 |
| Continuing-generation students | $19,000 |
Federal data publishes pre-calculated indicators that summarize debt outcomes. Macalester.
The Stafford program is the federal direct-loan vehicle most undergraduates use. The annual Stafford volume below reflects program activity at Macalester:
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Stafford loan recipients | 4051 |
| Total Stafford loan amount | $54,005,749 |
GI Bill and DoD Tuition Assistance are the two federal aid programs targeted at military-affiliated students.
GI Bill volume
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| GI Bill recipients | 21 |
| Total GI Bill amount | $533,860 |
| Average GI Bill amount per recipient | $25,422 |
References
More about our data sources and methodologies.