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Community-college Pell-grant share in Minnesota

Community colleges in Minnesota ranked by Pell-grant share — the percentage of undergraduates who received a federal Pell Grant in the most recent reporting year. Pell share is a useful proxy for the share of the student body from lower-income households and for the institution's experience serving students who depend heavily on need-based federal aid.

  1. White Earth Tribal and Community CollegeMahnomen, MN76%
  2. Leech Lake Tribal CollegeCass Lake, MN76%
  3. Red Lake Nation CollegeRed Lake, MN62%
  4. Minneapolis Community and Technical CollegeMinneapolis, MN40%
  5. St Cloud Technical and Community CollegeSaint Cloud, MN34%
  6. South Central CollegeNorth Mankato, MN33%
  7. Ridgewater CollegeWillmar, MN32%
  8. Northwest Technical CollegeBemidji, MN32%
  9. Dunwoody College of TechnologyMinneapolis, MN32%
  10. Century CollegeWhite Bear Lake, MN31%
  11. Minnesota North CollegeHibbing, MN31%
  12. North Hennepin Community CollegeBrooklyn Park, MN29%
  13. Normandale Community CollegeBloomington, MN28%
  14. Northwestern Health Sciences UniversityBloomington, MN28%
  15. Rochester Community and Technical CollegeRochester, MN28%
  16. Dakota County Technical CollegeRosemount, MN27%
  17. Minnesota State Community and Technical CollegeFergus Falls, MN25%
  18. Riverland Community CollegeAustin, MN24%
  19. Inver Hills Community CollegeInver Grove Heights, MN24%
  20. Northland Community and Technical CollegeThief River Falls, MN22%
  21. Anoka-Ramsey Community CollegeCoon Rapids, MN20%
  22. Lake Superior CollegeDuluth, MN19%
  23. Fond du Lac Tribal and Community CollegeCloquet, MN16%
  24. Alexandria Technical & Community CollegeAlexandria, MN16%
  25. Central Lakes College-BrainerdBrainerd, MN14%

How to interpret Pell share

The federal Pell Grant is the largest need-based grant program in U.S. higher education. Eligibility is determined by the FAFSA and is based primarily on family income and assets relative to the cost of attendance. A community college with a high Pell-grant share is, by construction, an institution whose student body skews toward lower-income households. That is not a quality signal in either direction on its own — many of the strongest community-college transfer pipelines in Minnesota run through institutions with high Pell shares — but it does indicate where institutional services such as emergency aid, child-care subsidies, food pantries, and need-based scholarships are most likely to be developed and well-resourced.

If you are eligible for the Pell Grant, the practical implication is that several of the community colleges on this list will be tuition-free for you after the grant is applied, with state aid and institutional aid often covering most of the remaining cost of attendance. File the FAFSA as early as possible in the academic year — it determines eligibility for all major federal need-based programs, and many state aid programs in Minnesota use the FAFSA as their qualifying application as well.