Is Lincoln Memorial University Worth It?

Lincoln Memorial University gives you a modest but positive financial return. With median debt at $20,000 and median earnings of about $50,000 ten years out, you can pay back what you borrow without drowning, but the earnings ceiling here is low for a private school charging nearly $18,000 a year.

Your major decides everything at this school. Clinical/Medical Laboratory Science and Registered Nursing are the two bachelor's programs that actually pay, clearing the school's median. Nursing carries the heaviest debt load at nearly $23,000, but the salary supports it, and Harrogate sits in a region where hospitals and clinics keep hiring healthcare workers. Everything else is a financial warning. Criminal Justice, Business, and Teacher Education graduates all earn under $34,000, with education grads bottoming out below $29,000. Paying private-school prices for a degree that returns those numbers puts you underwater for years.

The biggest risk is the graduation rate. Only about 54 percent of students finish, and retention sits near 69 percent, so roughly a third of first-year students leave. If you borrow and don't graduate, you carry the debt with none of the earnings. That gamble is the single largest financial danger here.

The net price tiers are strange. If your family earns under $48,000, you pay less than $13,000 to $14,500 a year. But cross into the $48,000-$75,000 range and your price jumps to nearly $20,000, then keeps climbing to over $25,000 above $110,000. Middle-income families see the sharpest increase for the least aid.

This school fits you if you're going into nursing or medical lab science, especially from a lower-income family qualifying for the discounted tiers. If you want business, education, or criminal justice, a cheaper public option will leave you with far better math.