10-yr median earnings
$54,820
Federal aid recipients only
Private Nonprofit · Galesburg, Illinois
Knox College is a private nonprofit institution in Galesburg, Illinois. as a private nonprofit, published Scorecard outcomes cover federal-aid recipients at this campus — endowment and sticker price sit outside those cohort fields.
The verdict
Knox College pairs top-quartile former-student earnings with a moderately open admit.
According to the U.S. Department of Education's College Scorecard.
Institution data retrieved July 2026; field-of-study data retrieved March 2026.
Figures above come from IPEDS institution records published through the College Scorecard (retrieved July 2026 for institution fields; March 2026 for field-of-study). Peer groups and cost cohorts follow IPEDS ownership sector, Carnegie class ("Baccalaureate Colleges: Arts & Sciences Focus"), and locale, not an editorial shortlist.
Average net price subtracts grant and scholarship aid from cost of attendance for full-time, first-time undergraduate Title IV recipients. It is a defined cohort average, not a personalized price; income-band fields add context but do not replace the school's current net-price calculator.
Earnings use Treasury-linked records for federally aided former students who were working and not enrolled in the measurement year (completers and noncompleters). IPEDS completion and retention use separate first-time, full-time cohorts, so those denominators are not the earnings cohort. Read cost, completion, and earnings as distinct historical measures, not a causal verdict or individual forecast.
A 6-metric composite of earnings, cost, and completion outcomes benchmarked against every reporting US college, not a ranking of teaching quality, campus life, or fit for any individual student. See the full methodology.
Each axis is the percentile score shown in the breakdown at left; the shape shows this school's overall profile at a glance.
10-yr median earnings
$54,820
Federal aid recipients only
Avg net price
$24,595
After grants and scholarships
150%-time completion
67.6%
Full-time, first-time cohort
Four-year-institution cohort
Each dot is a college plotted by 10-year median earnings (x-axis) vs average net price (y-axis), colored by completion within 150% of normal time. Bottom-right = high earnings/lower price; top-left = lower earnings/higher price.
Where this school's former-student earnings fall within the full national distribution of every US college that reports to the College Scorecard, not just its peer set.
Knox College: former-student earnings vs. every US college
10-year median earnings, College Scorecard
$54,820 Top 22% higher than 78% of 5,103 US colleges
Each bar is a $20K-wide band; taller bars hold more US colleges. The dashed line + filled bar mark this entry. Hover or tap any bar for its full count, share, and where it sits relative to this entry.
Source U.S. Department of Education, College Scorecard · Mar–Jul 2026 retrievals
| Metric | Knox College | National rank | Percentile |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10-yr median earnings | $54,820 | #1117 of 5103 | 78th |
| Average net price | $24,595 | #3873 of 5020 | 23rd (lower is better) |
| 150%-time completion | 67.6% | #1622 of 4858 | 67th |
| Undergraduate enrollment | 1,127 | #2065 of 5462 | 62nd |
National ranks count every operating US college reporting each metric to the College Scorecard, separate from the earnings histogram above.
State rank among 189 reporting Illinois colleges with College Scorecard data, a separate lens from the national distribution above.
| Metric | Knox College | State rank | Percentile |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10-yr median earnings | $54,820 | #46 of 189 | 76th |
| Average net price | $24,595 | #153 of 179 | 15th (lower is better) |
| 150%-time completion | 67.6% | #47 of 171 | 73rd |
| Undergraduate enrollment | 1,127 | #87 of 201 | 57th |
| # | School | 10-yr earnings | Net price |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Chamberlain University-Illinois | $92,405 | $31,837 |
| 2 | University of Chicago | $91,885 | $14,860 |
| 3 | Northwestern University | $89,363 | $29,167 |
| 4 | St. John's College | $86,331 | - |
| 5 | Lakeview College of Nursing | $84,522 | - |
| 6 | Illinois Institute of Technology | $82,592 | $18,425 |
| 7 | University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign | $81,054 | $14,355 |
| 8 | Saint Anthony College of Nursing | $77,709 | - |
| 9 | Rush University | $75,194 | - |
| 10 | Saint Francis Medical Center College of Nursing | $72,850 | - |
| 11 | Blessing Rieman College of Nursing and Health Sciences | $72,430 | - |
| 12 | Loyola University Chicago | $71,530 | $36,079 |
| 46 | Knox CollegeThis school | $54,820 | $24,595 |
| Admission Rate | 70.8% |
| SAT Average | 1,326 |
| SAT Math (25th-75th) | 580 – 760 |
| SAT Reading (25th-75th) | 600 – 680 |
| ACT Average | 28 |
| ACT (25th-75th) | 21 – 32 |
Average annual net price after grants; Title IV recipient cohort by income bracket
$0 – $30k
$17,134 net price / yr
$30k – $48k
$17,363 net price / yr
$48k – $75k
$23,844 net price / yr
$110k+
$31,983 net price / yr
What this shows Need-based aid pulls net price down at lower brackets at Knox College - compare the bar for your income band, not the overall average alone.
| In-State Tuition | $57,903 |
| Out-of-State Tuition | $57,903 |
| Average Net Price | $24,595 |
Average net price moved +19.5% over 10 years, from $20,818 to $24,875 in nominal dollars. The median college measured over the same span moved +14.6%.
11 reported years. Nominal dollars, not adjusted for inflation.
Over the same years, enrollment went -28.9% (1,402 → 997 students).
Source: U.S. Department of Education, College Scorecard, per-year fields (2013–2023). Net price is the average cost after grant and scholarship aid for federally-aided undergraduates.
| Measure | Cohort / horizon | Value |
|---|---|---|
| Completion within 150% of normal time | First-time, full-time | 67.6% |
| First-year retention | First-time, full-time freshmen | 83.1% |
| Median earnings | 6 years after entry | $37,757 |
| Median earnings | 10 years after entry | $54,820 |
| Share earning over $25,000 | Working, not enrolled | 54.7% |
| Loan repayment rate | Completers, 3 years after leaving | 78.9% |
| Median federal student debt | At completion | $27,000 |
| Estimated monthly payment | Standard 10-year plan | $286/mo |
Median earnings of program completers, College Scorecard field-of-study file
Economics
$62,144 median earnings
Political Science and Government
$54,341 median earnings
Biology, General
$53,231 median earnings
Teacher Education and Professional Development, Specific Levels and Methods
$50,828 median earnings
Sociology and Anthropology
$45,120 median earnings
Rhetoric and Composition/Writing Studies
$38,967 median earnings
What this shows The highest-earning programs at a school are not necessarily its most popular ones - a small specialized program can post strong median earnings without reflecting the outcome most students here actually see.
| Program | Credential | Completers | Median Earnings | Median Debt |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Economics | Bachelor's | 18 | $62,144 | $24,498 |
| Political Science and Government | Bachelor's | 20 | $54,341 | $25,553 |
| Biology, General | Bachelor's | 24 | $53,231 | $26,970 |
| Teacher Education and Professional Development, Specific Levels and Methods | Bachelor's | 19 | $50,828 | $27,000 |
| Sociology and Anthropology | Bachelor's | 15 | $45,120 | $27,000 |
| Rhetoric and Composition/Writing Studies | Bachelor's | 26 | $38,967 | $26,394 |
| Natural Resources Conservation and Research | Bachelor's | 16 | - | $26,000 |
| Computer Science | Bachelor's | 19 | - | $25,896 |
| Romance Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics | Bachelor's | 2 | - | - |
| English Language and Literature, General | Bachelor's | 9 | - | - |
| Psychology, General | Bachelor's | - | - | - |
| Research and Experimental Psychology | Bachelor's | 33 | - | $27,000 |
| International Relations and National Security Studies | Bachelor's | 9 | - | - |
| Social Sciences, Other | Bachelor's | - | - | - |
| Drama/Theatre Arts and Stagecraft | Bachelor's | 11 | - | - |
Independent Scorecard matches among reporting colleges — not recommendations from the institution or a counselor.
Other Private Nonprofit institutions closest in reported enrollment, preferring the same Carnegie classification.
Other Private Nonprofit institutions with the nearest reported average net price.
Same-sector institutions with the same direction and nearest fitted annual change; only series with R² of at least 0.40 qualify.
Private-nonprofit profiles emphasize Scorecard cost-after-aid and completion alongside IPEDS Carnegie class. Endowment, gifts, and sticker price are not Scorecard fields on this page.
Figures are the Mar–Jul 2026 federal retrievals. Nonprofit campuses vary widely in aid practice — net price here is the Title-IV-recipient cohort average, not an individual award letter. Read the full methodology for how the data is sourced, computed, and verified.
Where to go next from Knox College
Nonprofit Scorecard medians describe federal-aid recipients who were working and not enrolled — they are not sticker-price ROI and not advice.
Every figure on PlainCollege is rendered directly from the U.S. Department of Education's College Scorecard data, no number is typed in by an editor. Private-nonprofit profiles compile Scorecard net-price and earnings cohorts with IPEDS structure fields — no editor-typed figures. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error on this page. Review the public data changelog. Data current as of Mar–Jul 2026 retrievals.