Is University of Mount Union Worth It?

University of Mount Union gives you a middle-of-the-road financial return with one clear winner and several weak spots. The median graduate earns enough to service $27,000 in debt, but only barely, and your major decides everything here.

Mechanical engineering is the standout payoff. It pays roughly $23,000 more per year than finance, the next-best program, and clears the median earnings figure for the whole school by a wide margin. If you graduate from that program, the debt load is manageable against your starting salary. The business cluster,finance, management, marketing,lands in the mid-$40,000s, which covers your loan payments but leaves little cushion in an Ohio job market that pays modestly. Public relations and applied communication is the risk zone. At $36,042, you carry the same $27,000 debt as an engineer while earning nearly half as much. That combination makes repayment slow and tight.

The specific risk here is finishing at all. About a third of students don't return after the first year, and the graduation rate sits at 65%. If you borrow the median debt and then leave without a degree, you get the loan payments with none of the salary bump. That is the worst outcome, and the retention number says it happens to a meaningful share of students.

The net price barely moves across income brackets. A family under $30,000 pays about $18,754, and a family over $110,000 pays $25,238,a gap of only about $6,500. Lower-income families get little relief here compared to what steeper aid curves offer elsewhere.

This school fits you if you're set on mechanical engineering or committed to a business degree and confident you'll finish in four years. If you're drawn to communications or unsure about completing the program, the debt-to-earnings math works against you, and you should compare cheaper options first.