by our College Data Analytics TeamA lot of students are not billed 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 University of Nevada-Reno can seem overwhelming, but bear in mind that many students are given some form of financial aid.
What financial assistance options will UNR offer, and what will you qualify for? Read on for more information. Keep reading to find out what amount of financial assistance will be accessible to you.
How much aid you qualify for depends largely on your family’s financial circumstances. Use the information below to understand how much financial assistance you may get from University of Nevada-Reno.
Colleges use loans, grants, scholarships and work-study to minimize what students actually pay out of pocket. Note that some aid is more valuable than the rest, and individual awards are far from uniform.
At University of Nevada-Reno, 95% of first-time, full-time freshmen received some form of financial aid roughly 3221 students).
| Type of Aid | % of Freshmen Receiving | Average Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Grant or scholarship aid (all sources) | 93% | $7,375 |
| Institutional grants & scholarships | 84% | $3,096 |
| Federal Pell grants | 31% | $5,669 |
| State/local grants | 68% | $3,569 |
| Federal student loans | 33% | $4,965 |
The best aid is gift aid: grants and scholarships that carry no repayment obligation. Across the undergraduate body at UNR, approximately 62% of undergrads got grants or scholarships worth on average $8,181 (covering around 11169 awardees).
| Award | % of Undergrads Receiving | Average Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Grant or scholarship aid (all sources) | 62% | $8,181 |
| Federal Pell grants | 23% | $5,465 |
| Federal student loans | 24% | $6,118 |
Title-IV recipients living on campus saw average grant aid of $9,859.
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 | $12,284 |
| $30,001 – $75,000 | $13,774 |
| Over $75,000 | $19,691 |
Remember these are net prices — what families pay after gift aid, not before.
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 | $15,927 |
| Off-campus title-IV students | $15,402 |
To get a personalized net price estimate, try UNR’s net price tool: www.unr.edu/Prebuilt/financial-aid/net-price-calculator/index.html.
The median federal debt load at UNR comes to $13,000 in federal student debt.
| Metric | Amount |
|---|---|
| Median federal debt (all student-aid borrowers) | $13,000 |
| Median federal debt (graduates only) | $18,922 |
| Typical 10-year monthly payment (graduates) | $200.6/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 figures below chart the debt distribution at UNR.
| Percentile | Cumulative Federal Debt |
|---|---|
| 10th percentile (lowest-debt students) | $2,750 |
| 25th percentile | $5,500 |
| 75th percentile | $23,046 |
| 90th percentile (highest-debt students) | $31,000 |
Debt outcomes are not uniform — they shift with income, first-generation status, and dependency.
By Family Income
| Income tier | Median federal debt |
|---|---|
| Low income | $13,000 |
| Middle income | $12,500 |
| High income | $13,314 |
First-Generation Comparison
| Cohort | Median federal debt |
|---|---|
| First-generation students | $12,863 |
| Continuing-generation students | $13,000 |
Dependency-Status Comparison
| Cohort | Median federal debt |
|---|---|
| Dependent students | $12,250 |
| Independent students | $16,245 |
The figure below distills the debt data into a single burden category for UNR.
The Stafford program is the federal direct-loan vehicle most undergraduates use. Below is the annual Stafford program activity at UNR:
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Stafford loan recipients | 36579 |
| Total Stafford loan amount | $800,408,813 |
Military-affiliated students can tap the Post-9/11 GI Bill and DoD Tuition Assistance.
GI Bill volume
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| GI Bill recipients | 526 |
| Total GI Bill amount | $2,738,307 |
| Average GI Bill amount per recipient | $5,206 |
DoD program volume
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| DoD Tuition Assistance recipients | 21 |
| Total DoD amount | $78,476 |
| Average DoD amount per recipient | $3,737 |
References
More about our data sources and methodologies.