by our College Data Analytics TeamA large number of students will not be asked to pay the full, advertised sticker price of a school. Instead, they will be given a financial aid offer that will include a combination of scholarships, grants, loans, and work-study. The sum total of attendance at Salem University can sound tremendous, but do not forget that almost all students get some type of financial help.
What financial assistance options will Salem offer you, and what will you qualify for? Read on for more information. Keep going to find out how much school funding will be available to you.
The amount of financial aid and scholarships you are eligible for will vary depending on your family’s income. Read on to get a sense of the financial assistance available at Salem University.
Financial aid, in the form of loans, grants, work-study, and scholarships, is one way colleges reduce the cost of attendance so most students can actually afford to attend. Keep in mind that certain forms of assistance are more beneficial than others, and aid amounts differ from student to student.
For incoming first-year students at Salem University, 100% of first-year full-time students received aid of some kind (about 88 new students).
| Type of Aid | % of Freshmen Receiving | Average Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Grant or scholarship aid (all sources) | 100% | $8,569 |
| Institutional grants & scholarships | 47% | $5,079 |
| Federal Pell grants | 41% | $6,804 |
| State/local grants | 14% | $1,650 |
| Federal student loans | 91% | $10,477 |
The best aid is gift aid: grants and scholarships that carry no repayment obligation. At this school, some 88% of the undergraduate population received grant aid that averaged $6,567 (covering around 674 students).
| Award | % of Undergrads Receiving | Average Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Grant or scholarship aid (all sources) | 88% | $6,567 |
| Federal Pell grants | 75% | $5,543 |
| Federal student loans | 72% | $5,848 |
For on-campus title-IV students, average grant aid came to $6,347.
Since aid is largely need-based, the real cost of attendance falls steeply for lower-income families.
| Family Income | Average Net Price |
|---|---|
| $0 – $48,000 | $13,040 |
| $30,001 – $75,000 | $15,099 |
| Over $75,000 | $15,956 |
Remember these are net prices — what families pay after gift aid, not before.
Net price is the cost remaining after grant and scholarship aid is subtracted from the sticker price, and it is the most useful single number for estimating real cost.
| Cohort | Average Net Price |
|---|---|
| On-campus title-IV students | $12,303 |
| Off-campus title-IV students | $14,469 |
For an estimate tailored to your family circumstances, see Salem’s net price tool: www.salemu.edu/NPC/index.html.
The middle student in the debt distribution at Salem owes $7,405 of cumulative federal debt.
| Metric | Amount |
|---|---|
| Median federal debt (all student-aid borrowers) | $7,405 |
| Median federal debt (graduates only) | $24,694 |
| Typical 10-year monthly payment (graduates) | $261.8/mo |
Spreading the median graduate debt over a standard 10-year repayment schedule works out to roughly the monthly payment shown above.
The median alone does not show how widely outcomes vary across the student body. The four reference points below map the debt distribution at Salem.
| Percentile | Cumulative Federal Debt |
|---|---|
| 10th percentile (lowest-debt students) | $1,750 |
| 25th percentile | $4,750 |
| 75th percentile | $16,226 |
| 90th percentile (highest-debt students) | $33,700 |
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 | $5,913 |
| Middle income | $12,500 |
| High income | $10,467 |
First-Generation Comparison
| Cohort | Median federal debt |
|---|---|
| First-generation students | $7,331 |
| Continuing-generation students | $8,482 |
Dependent vs Independent Students
| Cohort | Median federal debt |
|---|---|
| Dependent students | $10,156 |
| Independent students | $6,267 |
A handful of calculated indicators summarize the debt outlook at Salem.
Stafford loans are the federal government’s primary direct undergraduate lending program. The totals below capture Stafford lending at Salem:
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Stafford loan recipients | 7526 |
| Total Stafford loan amount | $129,814,705 |
Military-affiliated students can tap the Post-9/11 GI Bill and DoD Tuition Assistance.
Post-9/11 GI Bill recipients
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| GI Bill recipients | 25 |
| Total GI Bill amount | $214,228 |
| Average GI Bill amount per recipient | $8,569 |
References
More about our data sources and methodologies.