Winona State University has been recognized as one of the top universities for affordability, earning a spot on the 2025 Top Colleges for Affordability list.
The designation comes from Scholarships360, a website that has a mission to “help students make better decisions around higher education.” To create the list, Scholarship360 ranked colleges and universities across the United States based on quality and affordability, considering factors like graduation rates, cost of attendance, and financial aid.
Out of more than 1,800 eligible colleges, Winona State ranks among the top 8% of institutions selected for the list.
For Winona State, this ranking highlights the university’s commitment to keeping higher education more accessible and affordable for all students.
Since 2020, Winona State University has created 89 scholarship funds awarded through the WSU Foundation to help students find a pathway to quality and affordable education. That’s in addition to the 800 scholarships already offered. And in 2024 alone, the university launched 15 new scholarships, and more than $2.2 million in student scholarships were awarded by the WSU Foundation.
Supporting the university’s efforts to reduce financial barriers to education, the WSU Foundation annually awards scholarships of $5,000 on average to both new students and current students. Awarded scholarships are based on a wide range of criteria, such as academic program and career choice, ACT/SAT scores and GPA, hometown, and volunteer experience.
“I’m graduating debt free,” said Anna Rose, a Marketing major at Winona State, “I took one whole day to apply for WSU Foundation scholarships, which ended up taking a huge chunk of debt off for me.”
As part of their ongoing commitment to affordability, in 2022, Winona State expanded eligibility for the Resident Tuition Scholarship to offer in-state tuition rates for all students who meet WSU’s admissions criteria.
For many in-state students, Minnesota’s new North Star Promise scholarship is opening doors to higher education by offering free college tuition to eligible students. Launched in the fall of 2024, this scholarship covers the balance of tuition and fees remaining after other scholarships, grants, stipends and tuition waivers have been applied.
For more information on Winona State scholarships and financial aid options, visit winona.edu/financial-aid/paying-for-college/scholarships/.
About Winona State University
Originally founded as a teacher’s college, Winona State University has more than 165 years’ experience educating top teaching professionals. Today, Winona State offers more than 200 majors and programs at the undergraduate, pre-professional, licensure, graduate, and doctorate level in five colleges: Business, Education, Liberal Arts, Nursing & Health Sciences, and Science & Engineering. The university’s Nursing program was established almost 60 years ago and is well-recognized throughout the region. In addition, Winona State is the only accredited undergraduate program in the U.S. that offers a Bachelor of Science in Composite Materials Engineering. For more information visit winona.edu.
