by our College Data Analytics TeamMost students will never be charged 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 total price of attendance at San Diego State University can feel overpowering, but remember that the majority of students receive some sort of financial assistance.
What financial assistance options will SDSU offer you, and what will you qualify for? Read on for more information. Keep reading to see what amount of financial assistance could be accessible to you.
The amount of financial aid and scholarships you are eligible for will vary depending on your family’s income. Use the information below to understand how much financial assistance you may get from San Diego State University.
Aid such as grants, loans, work-study, and scholarships helps colleges decrease the real cost of attendance for most students. Note that some aid is more valuable than the rest, and individual awards are far from uniform.
For incoming first-year students at San Diego State University, 62% of first-time, full-time freshmen received some form of financial aid roughly 3760 incoming students).
| Type of Aid | % of Freshmen Receiving | Average Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Grant or scholarship aid (all sources) | 47% | $12,053 |
| Institutional grants & scholarships | 27% | $6,866 |
| Federal Pell grants | 25% | $6,162 |
| State/local grants | 39% | $5,935 |
| Federal student loans | 25% | $4,941 |
Unlike loans, grants and scholarships are gift aid that does not need to be paid back, making them the most desirable form of assistance. At SDSU, around 53% of the undergraduate population received grant aid that averaged $11,851 (across approximately 17955 awardees).
| Award | % of Undergrads Receiving | Average Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Grant or scholarship aid (all sources) | 53% | $11,851 |
| Federal Pell grants | 32% | $5,916 |
| Federal student loans | 23% | $6,497 |
Title-IV recipients living on campus saw average grant aid of $12,416.
Because need-based aid scales with family income, what students actually pay differs sharply across income brackets.
| Family Income | Average Net Price |
|---|---|
| $0 – $48,000 | $9,882 |
| $30,001 – $75,000 | $12,284 |
| Over $75,000 | $23,133 |
These figures reflect what title-IV aid recipients pay after grant and scholarship aid is applied.
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 | $15,364 |
| Off-campus title-IV students | $16,174 |
For a personalized estimate based on your family’s financial situation, use SDSU’s NPC: sacd.sdsu.edu/financial-aid/financial-aid/eligibility/cost-of-attendance/net-price-calculator.
The middle student in the debt distribution at SDSU owes $12,847 of cumulative federal debt.
| Metric | Amount |
|---|---|
| Median federal debt (all student-aid borrowers) | $12,847 |
| Median federal debt (graduates only) | $15,000 |
| Typical 10-year monthly payment (graduates) | $159.02/mo |
Spreading the median graduate debt over a standard 10-year repayment schedule works out to roughly the monthly payment shown above.
A single median figure conceals how much debt outcomes differ student to student. Use the percentiles below to see the debt range at SDSU.
| Percentile | Cumulative Federal Debt |
|---|---|
| 10th percentile (lowest-debt students) | $3,749 |
| 25th percentile | $6,130 |
| 75th percentile | $23,531 |
| 90th percentile (highest-debt students) | $30,591 |
Debt outcomes are not uniform — they shift with income, first-generation status, and dependency.
By Family Income
| Income tier | Median federal debt |
|---|---|
| Low income | $12,441 |
| Middle income | $12,500 |
| High income | $14,996 |
First-Generation Comparison
| Cohort | Median federal debt |
|---|---|
| First-generation students | $12,500 |
| Continuing-generation students | $14,000 |
Dependent vs Independent Students
| Cohort | Median federal debt |
|---|---|
| Dependent students | $12,998 |
| Independent students | $12,500 |
The figure below distills the debt data into a single burden category for SDSU.
Stafford loans are the federal government’s primary direct undergraduate lending program. These figures summarize annual Stafford program activity at SDSU:
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Stafford loan recipients | 74448 |
| Total Stafford loan amount | $1,447,319,745 |
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 | 906 |
| Total GI Bill amount | $5,879,521 |
| Average GI Bill amount per recipient | $6,490 |
Active-duty Tuition Assistance recipients
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| DoD Tuition Assistance recipients | 23 |
| Total DoD amount | $54,291 |
| Average DoD amount per recipient | $2,360 |
References
More about our data sources and methodologies.