College profile
Whittier College
CA · Private nonprofit · Large suburb · 2,797 applicants 2023
A parent's read
- The 6× payoff headline requires aid. Without aid this runs ~$63,664/yr. There's no income cutoff for need-based aid — whether you qualify depends on the gap between a school's price and your family's finances, so at a price like this even six-figure incomes often show need. Families who receive aid average ~$25,757/yr — against that, ten years of median earnings run ~6× the cost. Run the college's own net-price calculator before anchoring on the multiple.
- Ask the submit question deliberately. This college is test-optional — but at many such colleges, applicants who submit strong scores are admitted at meaningfully higher rates. “Optional” is a strategy decision, not a pass.
Composed from this page's data — every claim is backed by a number in the sections below.
Parent/student verdict
AccessibleAccessible for most applicants.
Best for
- Students drawn to Business, Management, & Marketing or Social Sciences (the two biggest majors)
- Families wanting a small liberal-arts experience
Verdict is composed from this college's structured data (admit rate, SAT bands, net price with aid and at full price, Carnegie classification, scholarship grids) using transparent rule thresholds — not a chat-bot's opinion.
What are your child's odds here?
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Weighted is the higher GPA, with honors/AP credit in it — pick whichever your school reports. PSAT scores work in the SAT box.
Institutional snapshot
What kind of college is this?
Source: federal IPEDS Admissions 2023 for scores + admit rate; federal College Scorecard (20260606 vintage) for earnings + outcomes. SAT/ACT bands are the 25th–75th percentile of enrolled submitters.
Outcomes & cost
What graduates actually earn, finish, and owe.
Federal College Scorecard data. Earnings are median annual income measured years after entering. Debt is for federal-aid borrowers only (cash-pay students aren't counted).
The real cost
What Whittier College actually costs
Which side your family lands on isn't set by any national income line — it's set by Whittier College's own aid decision: the gap between its price and your family's finances.
Your odds + estimated cost across your whole college list, side by side.
The payoffTen years of typical graduate pay minus four years of cost — how many dollars ahead a typical graduate runs by year ten. Check both the full-price and with-aid versions to see which applies to you; median pay reflects who a college admits and what they study as much as the college itself., both ways
+$340K ahead at full price +$492K with aidSource: College Scorecard (average net price among Title IV first-time, full-time undergraduates who received aid) and each college's published cost of attendance. We don't show the federal net-price-by-income brackets: their categories were fixed in 2008 and never adjusted, and none of the averages is your family's own number — the full story. Payoff = (10-yr median earnings × 10) − (4 years of cost), in dollars — how far ahead a typical graduate runs by year ten; medians travel with the students a college admits and the majors they choose as much as with the college itself. Full price is the published cost of attendance; earnings are 10 years after enrollment, all majors combined.
What students study here
Most popular majors at Whittier College
Top 5 fields of study by bachelor's degrees awarded (most recent IPEDS Completions). Use this to see what Whittier College actually graduates — not just what it markets.
What those majors earn here
Median earnings 4 years after entry, by major — Whittier College's own graduates, not national averages.
| Major (CIP) | 4-yr earnings |
|---|---|
| Business Administration, Management and Operations. | $73,792 |
| Social Sciences, General. | $64,736 |
| Psychology, General. | $58,397 |
| Political Science and Government. | $55,853 |
| English Language and Literature, General. | $55,536 |
| Sports, Kinesiology, and Physical Education/Fitness. | $47,719 |
| Human Development, Family Studies, and Related Services. | $44,877 |
Sources: IPEDS Completions (C2023_a; bachelor's-level first majors, 2-digit CIP family — share is of the top 5 only) · College Scorecard program-level outcomes (PP-FOS). Full college-vs-major comparison: /college-outcomes →
Student body & economic mobility
Who attends here — and what the campus adds.
Opportunity Insights data. It measures two things at once: how many lower-income students a college enrols, and how many of them reach the top earnings quintile later. A high rate says the college does both — it does not establish that the campus caused the earnings, because the students it admits differ from the students it doesn't. Read it as a signal about access and destination, not as proof of value added.
Full leaderboards: /college-mobility →
Alternatives to Whittier College
Matched not just by selectivity, but by strategic goal — what a family actually decides on.
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Feeder high schools
Which high schools send graduates to Whittier College?
6 high schools publish a numbered matriculation list — where their graduates actually enrolled, counted, in the school's own School Profile — and name Whittier College on it. Between them they printed 10 enrolled graduates. Ranked by graduates per class year enrolling at Whittier College, from each school's own published list: the number that school printed, divided by the class years its list covers. The published total and the school's own years label are shown beside every school, so a one-year list and a five-year list can sit on the same page. A list whose class years we cannot read is not divided by a guess — it is listed below with its total instead.
All 6 feeder schools, ranked →
Counted from each school's own published document, linked on that school's page. A high school that is not here does not publish a numbered list we could read — that is all absence means, and it says nothing about its graduates. Where a school publishes both, the two lists are shown separately: an acceptances list is not a list of enrollments, and the two are never added together.
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At a glance
JSON · Using this page with an AI assistantWhittier College is a private nonprofit four-year college in CA. It admitted 85% of applicants (2,797 applied, 2023). Test policy: Test-optional.
Cost: about $25,757 a year on average with aid, $63,664 a year at full price.
Median earnings ten years after entry: $59,492 a year. Payoff, meaning ten years of that pay minus four years of cost: $491,892 ahead with aid, $340,264 ahead at full price.
Highest median earnings four years after the degree, by program: Business Administration, Management and Operations ($73,792); Social Sciences, General ($64,736); Psychology, General ($58,397).
Economic mobility (Opportunity Insights): 8% of students came from families in the bottom fifth of income, and 37% of those reached the top fifth as adults.
High schools that publish a numbered matriculation list and name Whittier College: 6, 10 enrolled students between them — ranked by graduates per class year, most often Santa Margarita Catholic High School (2.0 per class year, 2 over 1 class year, Class of 2025); Kamehameha Schools (0.6 per class year, 4 over 7 class years, the last seven years, 2017-2023); Westridge School (0.3 per class year, 1 over 3 class years, 2021-2023). Each figure is the number that school printed divided by the class years its own list covers; the totals and years are shown. These are the schools that publish such a list, not every school that sends students; full list: https://highschoolreach.com/leaderboards/feeder-schools/whittier-college.
Machine-readable version of this page: https://highschoolreach.com/colleges/whittier-college.json