College Scorecard · cost, debt & earnings
Western Carolina University
Cullowhee, NC · Public · Bachelor-granting · 10,024 undergrads · 82% admitted
Most students who start here finish.
Average annual price after grants & scholarships. ~$79,968 over four years if you finish on time.
What former students go on to earn
The middle 50% of students who received federal aid, measured 10 years after they entered (an earlier entering class — not a guarantee, and not limited to those who graduated). Earnings vary enormously by field of study.
71% earn more than a typical high-school graduate (the dashed line above, $28,000 — a fixed, somewhat dated federal benchmark) ten years on.
Your major matters more than your school
The school-wide figure above blends every major together — but pay varies enormously by program. Pick a degree level (and search your major) to compare like-for-like.
40 Bachelor's programs · $19,961 to $65,703 (1 yr out)
The Dept. of Education omits programs with too few graduates (to protect privacy), so not every major appears. Pay is a median for federally-aided graduates. Full program detail on the official Scorecard.
This counts federal student loans only — not private loans, Parent PLUS loans, or family savings, so the true cost of borrowing is usually higher. And because students who drop out borrow less, a school where many students don't finish can show a deceptively low debt figure — read it next to the completion rate above.
What these numbers are — and are not
Every figure here is an institution-wide median from the U.S. Dept. of Education College Scorecard. It is not a prediction of what you would earn or owe — a computer-science and a fine-arts graduate of the same school can earn wildly different amounts, and your field of study matters more than your school. It is not a figure for any one program, not proof the school caused the outcome (selective schools admit students who would earn more anyway), and not a "best college" ranking. Earnings and debt cover federally-aided students.
→ The number that actually answers "worth it" is earnings by major — see the by-major breakdown above (53 programs at this school).
Also available: structured data (JSON-LD) · plain text · JSON. Source: U.S. Dept. of Education College Scorecard (2026-06-10 release). · school website