by our College Data Analytics TeamA lot of students will never be charged 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 The College of New Jersey can seem tremendous, but do not forget that almost all students are given some form of financial help.
What financing options does TCNJ offer you, and what will you qualify for? Keep scrolling for more information. Keep going to find out how much school funding will be available to you.
How much aid you qualify for depends largely on your family’s financial circumstances. Read on to get a sense of the financial assistance available at The College of New Jersey.
Financial assistance, available as scholarships, loans, and work-study, is a way schools lower the price of attendance so many students can enroll. Some kinds of aid are clearly preferable to others, and outcomes differ across students.
For freshmen starting at The College of New Jersey, 81% of first-year full-time students received aid of some kind roughly 1249 students).
| Type of Aid | % of Freshmen Receiving | Average Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Grant or scholarship aid (all sources) | 59% | $13,360 |
| Institutional grants & scholarships | 53% | $9,175 |
| Federal Pell grants | 21% | $5,937 |
| State/local grants | 23% | $7,691 |
| Federal student loans | 50% | $5,299 |
Grants and scholarships are the most valuable form of aid because, unlike loans, they never have to be repaid. At TCNJ, around 53% of undergrads got grants or scholarships worth on average $12,032 (among about 3767 students).
| Award | % of Undergrads Receiving | Average Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Grant or scholarship aid (all sources) | 53% | $12,032 |
| Federal Pell grants | 21% | $5,519 |
| Federal student loans | 48% | $6,282 |
Among title-IV aid recipients living on campus, grant and scholarship aid averaged $11,214.
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 | $13,535 |
| $30,001 – $75,000 | $17,418 |
| Over $75,000 | $32,235 |
Each amount is the average cost remaining once grant aid is subtracted, by income band.
The net price strips out grant and scholarship aid from the sticker price to show roughly what families really pay.
| Cohort | Average Net Price |
|---|---|
| On-campus title-IV students | $27,646 |
| Off-campus title-IV students | $25,458 |
To get a personalized net price estimate, try TCNJ’s online cost calculator: netpricecalc.tcnj.edu/netpricecalc/.
The median federal debt load at TCNJ comes to $21,500 of federal student loans.
| Metric | Amount |
|---|---|
| Median federal debt (all student-aid borrowers) | $21,500 |
| Median federal debt (graduates only) | $23,250 |
| Typical 10-year monthly payment (graduates) | $246.49/mo |
At a typical 10-year repayment schedule, the median graduate would pay about the monthly figure above.
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 TCNJ.
| Percentile | Cumulative Federal Debt |
|---|---|
| 10th percentile (lowest-debt students) | $5,500 |
| 25th percentile | $12,500 |
| 75th percentile | $27,000 |
| 90th percentile (highest-debt students) | $30,258 |
Debt outcomes are not uniform — they shift with income, first-generation status, and dependency.
By Family Income
| Income tier | Median federal debt |
|---|---|
| Low income | $19,278 |
| Middle income | $20,500 |
| High income | $21,500 |
First-Generation Comparison
| Cohort | Median federal debt |
|---|---|
| First-generation students | $20,500 |
| Continuing-generation students | $21,500 |
By Dependency Status
| Cohort | Median federal debt |
|---|---|
| Dependent students | $21,250 |
| Independent students | $23,000 |
These indicators are derived from the underlying debt data and summarize the overall picture at TCNJ.
Stafford loans are the federal government’s primary direct undergraduate lending program. The aggregate figures below show how active the program is at TCNJ:
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Stafford loan recipients | 15860 |
| Total Stafford loan amount | $280,311,993 |
GI Bill and DoD Tuition Assistance are the two federal aid programs targeted at military-affiliated students.
Post-9/11 GI Bill activity
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| GI Bill recipients | 36 |
| Total GI Bill amount | $473,729 |
| Average GI Bill amount per recipient | $13,159 |
DoD program volume
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| DoD Tuition Assistance recipients | 0 |
| Total DoD amount | $0 |
References
More about our data sources and methodologies.