Salem College · North Carolina

Salem College scholarships and merit aid

Salem offers a broad range of merit awards recognizing academic achievement, leadership, and special talents across many areas.

Verified Jun 20263 months ago

The short answer

Is Salem College worth a closer look?

Salem College awards automatic merit on admission. Salem College does not publish a GPA or test chart, so you cannot self-calculate the dollars.

Merit tiers126 based on grades or scores

Research checkedJun 2026By our research team

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Checking merit aid at Salem College

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Published scholarships

These amounts and requirements come from the school’s own published pages. Open an award to see who qualifies and how to keep it.

$23,000

Deans Award

Based on grades or scores

Source

$21,000–$26,000

Arbor Award

Based on grades or scoresCan continue

Source

$21,000–$26,000

Founders Award

Based on grades or scoresCan continue

Source

$21,000–$26,000

Presidential Scholarship

Based on grades or scoresCan continue

Source

$21,000–$26,000

Spirit Award

Based on grades or scoresCan continue

Source

Amount not published

Elberson Scholarship

Apply separately

Source

Amount not published

Whitaker Scholarship

Apply separately

Source

Amount not published

Kick Scholarship

Apply separately

Source

Amount not published

Chatham Scholarship

Apply separately

Source

Amount not published

Davis Art Scholarship

Apply separately

Source

$21,000–$26,000

Trustee Award

Based on grades or scoresCan continue

Source

Amount not published

Womble Scholarship

Apply separately

Source

See costs and school data

Who this school may work for

Students with strong academic records who are involved in their communities and have specific talents or interests will find numerous opportunities to be recognized.

Published yearly cost: Approximately $49,456 for 2026-2027. Source

Cost and graduation facts

Federal reporting on who actually enrolls at Salem College, what they paid after aid, and what happened next — independent of anything the school markets.

Average annual net price by family income at Salem College, academic year 2021-22
Family income	Average net price paid
$0–$30,000	$19,074
$30,001–$48,000	$16,001
$48,001–$75,000	$16,147
$75,001–$110,000	$19,940
$110,001+	$24,027
All income levels (average)	$18,277

Sticker price vs. what students actually pay

Published tuition & fees, AY 2022-23: $33,848
Average net price paid (all Title-IV aid), AY 2021-22: $18,277

That works out to roughly a 62% discount below the federal AY 2021-22 average cost of attendance of $48,532 (College Scorecard — a separate, federally reported figure, not the published cost of attendance shown above).

Outcomes for students who enrolled here

Graduation rate (150% of normal time), 2016 cohort: 57%
First-year retention rate, 2021 cohort: 68%
Median debt at completion, 2020–2021 completers: $26,649 (~$283/mo on a 10-yr plan)
Median earnings, 10 years after entry (measured 2020-21): $44,640
Share of students receiving a Pell grant, AY 2021-22: 71%
Share of students receiving a federal loan, AY 2021-22: 56%

How to read these numbers

Net price reflects only first-time, full-time, degree-seeking students who received federal Title IV financial aid — not Salem College's full student body.
Published tuition is the catalog sticker price for all students, not a Title IV-only figure.
Graduation rate reflects the entire first-time, full-time, degree-seeking cohort — not only students who received Title IV aid.
Retention rate reflects all first-time, full-time, bachelor's-seeking students — not only Title IV aid recipients.
Median debt reflects only completers who took out federal student loans — not Salem College's full graduating class, and not limited to first-time, full-time students.
Median earnings reflect Title IV aid recipients who entered college and were working (not enrolled) roughly a decade later — not necessarily the graduating cohort, and not a recent graduate's paycheck.
Pell grant and federal loan participation covers first-time, full-time, degree-seeking students only.
Net price blends need-based aid and merit aid together — it is not a merit-specific estimate. It shows what similar-income families actually paid on average after every kind of aid, not what a strong-stats student could win in merit dollars alone. Treat it as cost context, not a merit forecast — a MeritPlaybook models merit aid specifically for your student’s own stats, which this net-price figure cannot do.

None of this is current-year data — the U.S. Department of Education reports it on a delay, and different figures below come from different reporting years. Net price is an academic year 2021-22 figure. Published tuition reflects the 2022-23 academic year. Graduation rate reflects the Fall 2016 entering, full-time, first-time, degree/certificate-seeking cohort; completion measured within 150% of normal time (~6 years for a bachelor's degree). IPEDS Graduation Rates component (C150_4). Retention reflects the Fall 2021 full-time, first-time, bachelor's-seeking cohort retained into the following fall. IPEDS Fall Enrollment component (RET_FT4). Median debt reflects the NSLDS FY2020 and FY2021 pooled completer cohorts (GRAD_DEBT_MDN, GRAD_DEBT_MDN10YR_SUPP). Median earnings reflect the Treasury-matched cohort entering college in AY2009-10 or AY2010-11, earnings measured 10 years later in calendar years 2020 and 2021, inflation-adjusted to 2022 dollars (MD_EARN_WNE_P10).

Source: U.S. Department of Education, College Scorecard.

See other scholarships and cost examples

Other Salem College scholarships worth checking

These awards can be harder to find. Each one has its own rules.

Salem Scholars Program

AmountPercentage of tuition (see source)EligibilityThe Salem Scholars Program is a four-year scholarship and leadership program for incoming students interested in health with demonstrated academic excellence and leadership; accepted Salem Scholars receive 100% funding for tuition, including paid tuition for study abroad experiences.

Source

See sources and other schools

How Salem College compares

665 of 749 verified schools publish at least one four-year renewable merit award.
Salem College is one of them. The cohort minority (84 schools) only awards one-year scholarships, which means the four-year value families assume on a brochure quote isn't guaranteed at every school.

Sources used on this page

Every claim is checked against Salem College’s own published materials. Below is the full reference set.

Cost of attendanceSalem College cost-of-attendance worksheet
Merit tiersDeans Award
Scholarship pageSalem Scholars Program

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