This is neither a university brochure nor a cold table. It is an honest translation of what St. Andrews University reports to the Department of Education, prepared so that you, without having studied federal codes, can understand what kind of school it is, what it costs, who can afford it, and what questions you still need to ask before your child signs anything.
Who St. Andrews University Is
St. Andrews University is in Laurinburg, North Carolina, in Scotland County. The area around the campus is a town, away from large cities. That is neither good nor bad in itself, but if your family does not live nearby, you need to calculate separately where your child would live and how your child would get around. The data locates the school’s address. It does not tell you how far away you will be.
It is a private, nonprofit institution offering programs of four years or more. The highest level it reports offering is a master’s degree, although that is general institutional information, not a guarantee that the major your child is interested in offers that path. If the plan is to continue into graduate study in something specific, ask directly whether that program exists and whether it connects with the bachelor’s degree.
The Carnegie Classification, which organizes the country’s colleges and universities by what they do, describes it as a bachelor’s college with diverse fields, very small and highly residential: during the period Carnegie used for that classification, at least half of degree-seeking students lived in institution-provided housing, and at least 80 out of every 100 attended full time. It also appears among institutions that receive many transfer students. If your child plans to come here after studying somewhere else, that label does not tell you how many credits would transfer or which would be lost along the way. Request that information in writing before enrolling.
One more thing, and it is worth saying plainly because many families ask about it: St. Andrews University is not listed as a historically Black college or university, a tribal college or university, or a land-grant institution. This is not one question with three options. These are three separate answers, and this school has none of those designations. That does not tell you which community it serves or how your child would feel there. Ask directly by speaking with someone who already studies on campus.
A Small Community, With Few Latino Students
St. Andrews University had 832 students enrolled in the official fall count, of whom 806 were undergraduates and 26 were graduate students. It is primarily an undergraduate school, and a small one: compared with the other 131 private, four-year, open-admission schools that form its comparison group in this analysis, its size places it around the middle, neither among the largest nor among the smallest.
The undergraduate population is almost evenly divided between men and women: 52 out of every 100 are women. And 20 out of every 100 are between 25 and 64 years old, so this is not a campus made up entirely of young people who just finished high school.
Now for the figure that many families like yours want to know first: out of every 100 undergraduate students, 9 are Hispanic or Latino. It is a small minority, and compared with similar schools, it falls below the comparison-group midpoint. It is worth saying without embellishment: there are few Latino students here. That neither removes the school from the list nor puts it on the list. But if your child will be one of the few, ask during the visit what is available for Latino students: a student group, a cultural center, or someone in the office who speaks Spanish. And keep in mind something technical but important: at least 20 out of every 100 students were reported in an unknown race or ethnicity category, so the proportion of 9 is a floor, not a final figure.
How Academic Life Is Organized
The academic year is organized into semesters: two long terms of about 15 weeks each. The school accepts credits from AP exams and military training, but it did not indicate that it accepts credit for life experience, and it also does not enroll high school students in college courses for credit. Saying that it accepts AP does not mean every exam counts: we do not know what scores it requires or how many credits it awards. Request the equivalency evaluation in writing before counting those savings in your budget.
As for the degrees it actually awards, St. Andrews awarded 120 bachelor’s degrees during the year, distributed across 15 families of majors. But the offerings are concentrated: business and administration accounted for 49 of those 120 degrees, or 41 out of every 100. Compared with similar schools, it falls within the quarter reporting the most families of majors, although the number of degrees awarded each year is small, so it can change considerably from one year to the next. If your child is interested in a major outside business, request the last three years of data for that specific major rather than relying on a snapshot of a single year.
The student-to-instructional-staff ratio is 14 to 1. That is a low ratio in general terms, but compared with similar schools, it is above the median: more schools of its type have an even lower ratio. Both things are true at the same time, and neither tells you the actual size of a class. You need to ask that directly.
St. Andrews also reports structured academic pathways: study abroad, a complete program that can be taken entirely during evenings or weekends, and teacher-certification pathways, including state approval for initial teacher certification. If any of these programs is relevant to your child, it is worth asking about it in detail.
Admissions: The Door Is Open, but That Is Not the Entire Path
St. Andrews University reports an open-admission policy for all or most of its first-time students. The published application fee is $0.
I want to be clear with you here because this confuses many families: open admission is not the same as “will be admitted without conditions.” It is the institution’s general policy. Your child still has to meet any applicable eligibility requirements, and if your child is interested in a specific program—for example, the teacher certification mentioned above—that program may have its own requirements and its own enrollment limit. Ask the department directly.
Because it is an open-admission school, several data points that are normally reported to the government—the acceptance rate, the enrollment rate after admission, and SAT or ACT use—simply do not apply here and are not reported. This does not mean the school hid something: the federal system does not require those data when admission is open. Whether the exams are used for class placement or scholarships is another question to ask the school directly.
As for transfers: in the fall of 2023, 89 undergraduate students arrived at St. Andrews for the first time after studying at another institution. This is a count of people that places it in the lower half among similar schools, although that number goes hand in hand with the school’s size. What we do not know, because the report does not provide it, is how many credits were accepted when they arrived. Ask the school that question before deciding.
Cost: This Is Where You Need to Pay Attention
At St. Andrews University, among 56 first-time, full-time, credential-seeking students who received federal Title IV aid and whose EFC records showed family income below $30,000, the average net price was $35,861. Among 25 students in the same population with EFC family income from $48,001 to $75,000, it was $31,578; among 41 students with EFC family income above $110,000, it was $34,745. For dependent students, the band combines their parents’ income with their own.
The highest-income band, calculated using 41 students, ended with an average of $34,745, below the $35,861 calculated using 56 students in the lowest-income band. Among first-year students who received any grant or scholarship, the average was $31,503.
Among the 118 schools of the same type and control included in this census that reported this measure with the same time coverage, it falls within the most expensive quarter for the lowest-income families. That does not mean you should rule it out. It means you need to request the financial-aid letter before deciding.
It is unusual for the highest-income band to be below the lowest-income band, and it does not mean your family will receive the same result. The income bands in this profile describe first-time, full-time, credential-seeking students who received federal Title IV aid; at public institutions, they use the in-state or in-district rate. The overall average for students receiving grants or scholarships, when shown, describes first-time, full-time, credential-seeking students who received federal, state, local, or institutional grants or scholarships. Use the net-price calculator on the school’s website with your actual figures.
How It Is Paid For: Grants, Loans, and What That Means
Out of every 100 degree-seeking students at St. Andrews, 85 received a grant or scholarship that does not have to be repaid, and among those who received one, the average was $17,465 per year. Remember that this average is not spread across everyone: it applies only to those who received something. And 48 out of every 100 received a Pell Grant, the federal aid for students from families with demonstrated financial need.
Now for the other side of the equation, and I want to be direct with you because this is where families most often get stuck: 69 out of every 100 undergraduate students received a federal student loan. That is the majority, six out of ten or more. Among those who borrowed, the annual average was $7,166. If your child borrowed a similar amount in each of the four years, the total would be around $28,664, not counting interest and not including Parent PLUS loans that parents sometimes sign for, or bank or credit-card debt. That figure is decided before the first signature, not at the end.
The fact that borrowing is common here does not determine whether your child will need it. That depends on the difference between your family’s actual net price and what you can pay. When the financial-aid letter arrives, separate it by hand into three piles: what does not have to be repaid, what must be repaid with interest, and what must be earned through work. Many letters mix them together in a single column, and that is where families become confused.
The institution also reports a tuition installment-payment plan, in case it helps your family to spread the cost over time instead of paying it all at once.
Campus Life, Sports, and Support
St. Andrews does have its own housing, with a reported capacity of 642 students, and it does not require all first-year students to live there, although a specific program could have its own rule. It also offers meal plans with a fixed number of meals per week in its largest option. Before removing room and board from your budget, request this year’s exact rate and ask whether space is guaranteed or there is a waiting list.
As for ROTC, the school did not indicate any ROTC opportunity in its report, either generally or by branch. That does not mean there is no nearby pathway: if that scholarship matters to your family, ask about it directly before ruling it out.
St. Andrews competes in intercollegiate athletics and is affiliated with the NAIA, with reported membership for football, basketball, and baseball. If your child plays, write directly to the coach for that sport: ask whether there is a place on the team, which division they compete in, and whether that specific sport offers athletic scholarships. Get the answer in writing.
The school also offers distance education at the undergraduate and graduate levels: 27 out of every 100 undergraduate students were taking only distance-education courses in the fall count; the other 73 were taking at least one in-person course. This figure covers the entire undergraduate population together, not your child’s particular major. One major may be almost entirely online while the one next to it is almost entirely on campus.
The library has employed staff, annual expenditures of $100,000 or more, a physical and digital collection, and interlibrary lending. The institution also reports combined academic and career counseling, employment services for students, placement services upon program completion, and participation in the Yellow Ribbon program for veterans.
Persistence and Graduation: The Part You Need to Examine Without Blinking
Here we reach the most difficult figures, and I would rather give them to you completely and without softening them because they are precisely the ones that help most with planning.
Retention. Of the 172 students who entered bachelor’s-degree study for the first time in the fall of 2022, 88—51 out of every 100—were still enrolled there or had already graduated one year later. In other words, almost half do not appear in that outcome. The report does not say why: it does not distinguish among those who transferred, those who paused their studies, or those who left because of money or work. Compared with similar schools, St. Andrews falls slightly below the comparison-group midpoint.
Graduation within six years. Of the 188 students who entered bachelor’s-degree study in 2017, attended full time, and had no prior college experience, 48 had graduated there six years later: 26 out of every 100. Within the four-year time frame, the figure falls to 18 out of every 100. This figure covers the entire school, not a particular major. IPEDS does not report graduation by major, so if your child is pursuing a specific one, you need to request that information directly from the department.
At eight years. A broader cohort of 240 students who entered between July 2015 and June 2016—including full-time and part-time students—reached 44 out of every 100 earning a degree or certificate from this school within eight years. Among those who received a Pell Grant, the figure was 43 out of every 100, almost identical. And here is a technical detail worth knowing: 56 out of every 100 members of that cohort had an “unknown” enrollment status at the final cutoff. Unknown does not mean they dropped out or that they are still studying somewhere else: it means the report was unable to determine their status.
None of these three figures tells you what will happen to your child. They are outcomes for the entire school, for specific cohorts, during specific periods. What they do tell you is that it is worth asking, calmly and in writing, what support the institution provides during the first year—which is when a new student is most likely to struggle—and what it is doing differently today compared with the cohorts reflected in these figures.
What You Already Know, and What Is Up to You
You now know St. Andrews University with the same clarity an advisor would have when viewing it in a federal report: a small, private, nonprofit school in a North Carolina town, with open admission, few Latino students, a high sticker price, common borrowing, and graduation outcomes around one out of every four students within the standard time frame.
None of this determines whether it is the right school for your child.
If you live near Laurinburg, the logistics change. If your child is interested in business, this school shows its clearest strength. If your child is interested in another major, you need to confirm directly how strong that specific offering is. And if money is your family’s central concern, as it is for most families, the most important task you have today is not to admire or dismiss this university: it is to complete the FAFSA and request the financial-aid letter in writing so you can see the actual figure, not the sticker price.
You have already taken the first step, which is truly understanding what kind of university this is. The next step—combining this piece with what your child wants and what your family can afford—is up to you and your family.
Source note: The information in this article comes from data reported by St. Andrews University to the United States Department of Education’s IPEDS system, primarily corresponding to the 2022-23 and 2023-24 cycles, with some Carnegie Classification data based on 2019-20 and 2021. Best College Aid does not represent St. Andrews University or any government agency; this article organizes and explains public data to help families understand it.