See admissions data, costs, student outcomes, and academic programs, all verified from official US government sources.
San Marcos, California
Thinking about Palomar College, a college in California where more students graduate in Liberal Arts than anything else? The four things worth knowing are what it actually costs after aid, whether you would get in, whether students finish, and what they earn after they do.
Palomar College is a public institution offering associate degrees based in San Marcos, California. It enrolls 17,712 students (a very large student body), according to IPEDS 2023-24 data. Every figure on this page is reported by the federal government, not supplied by the college, so it can be compared like for like against anywhere else you are looking.
Official website: www2.palomar.edu
These four scores answer one question: compared with similar colleges, is this one worth the money? Each runs 0 to 100 and is judged only against its peer group (2-Year), so a community college is never marked down for not being Harvard. Everything is computed from federal data. Nobody can pay to move a score, and a pillar with missing data is left unscored rather than guessed.
As a two-year college, Palomar College admits essentially everyone who qualifies, so plan around cost and completion instead of your odds of getting in.
Ignore the sticker price. What matters is the net price, which is what a typical family pays here after grants and scholarships come off. At $5,763 a year on average, it sits well below what public colleges charge nationally. At that level cost is rarely the reason to rule a college out. Figures are College Scorecard 2023-24.
The average hides a wide spread by household income, so it is worth estimating what a family at your income would actually pay before treating this as the price.
Published cost of attendance, the sticker price before grants and scholarships. Most students underestimate room & board and other expenses.
Aid is need-based, so net price varies by family income. Here's what each bracket typically pays after grants and scholarships.
Cumulative federal-loan debt across the full borrowing distribution. The 10th and 90th percentiles bracket the typical range; the median sits in the middle.
Median federal-loan debt at graduation broken down by demographic. Each slice's size is proportional to the dollar amount that group typically borrows.
11% of students who start here finish within six years, and 71% come back after first year. Most students who start here do not finish. That is the single most important number on this page. Source: IPEDS 2023-24.
Completion and earnings carry the most weight in this college's score, and how the UCD Score weighs each measure sets out exactly how they are combined.
Ten years after starting here, the median student earns $42,300 a year, close to the national median. Typical for most colleges, so what you study will matter more than where. Source: College Scorecard 2023-24.
Median annual earnings 6, 8, and 10 years after students first enrolled.
Mean annual earnings 10 years after entry, segmented by demographic. Reveals gaps the headline median can't show.
Median earnings for female grads ten years after first enrolling here.
Median earnings for male grads ten years after first enrolling here.
Share of completer-cohort borrowers paying down at least $1 of principal at the 1-, 3-, 5-, and 7-year mark. Climbing rates show graduates settling into careers and managing debt; flat or declining rates are a warning.
Who you would actually be sitting next to: 17,712 students, a sprawling student community. Worth knowing: 54% are the first in their family to go to college, and 64% study part-time, so many are working alongside classes.
Undergraduate student body composition reported to the US Department of Education.
Where students live, learn, and connect at Palomar College. The campus setting, housing profile, and signals that shape day-to-day life here.
After that comes the national picture for Social Sciences graduates, which shows what the field pays across every college rather than just this one.
Palomar College offers an extensive catalog of programs: 99 distinct programs across 31 majors. Below are its strongest majors, each with flagship programs and typical earnings. Open a major to explore it in depth, or browse the full program catalog.
There are 24 students for every instructor here: high, so expect big lectures and to work harder for one-to-one time.
301 instructional faculty across 1 ranks. The rank mix shows how many senior faculty are teaching versus contingent or junior staff, with average salary equated to a 9-month contract.
| Rank | Faculty Count | Share | Avg Salary |
|---|---|---|---|
| Instructors | 301 | 100% | $117,244 |
No college is right for everyone. Here is where Palomar College is likely to suit you and where it may not, based on the same figures shown above.
Read against a single profile these cut both ways, which is why it helps to put two colleges side by side on the same measures rather than judging one in isolation.
The questions families ask most about Palomar College, answered straight from the federal data rather than from the college's own marketing.
One federal dataset, 3,811 colleges. The median school costs $16,296 a year, admits 78% of applicants, and enrolls 1,280 students. The shape of US higher ed.
Across 1,645 four-year colleges, graduation rates climb steadily with selectivity, from 54% at open-admission schools to 93% at the most exclusive. The gap is real.
For-profit colleges post the highest median net price of any sector and the lowest graduate earnings. They cost more than private nonprofits and pay less than publics.
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