Utah State University
Utah State University is located in Logan, Utah. It is a public, 4-year or above institution.
From Wikipedia: Utah State University (USU or Utah State) is a public land-grant research university with its main campus in Logan, Utah. Founded in 1888 under the Morrill Land-Grant Acts as Utah’s federal land-grant institution, Utah State serves as one of Utah’s two flagship universities. It is classified among “R1: Doctoral Universities – Very High Research Activity”. The Logan campus is the state’s largest public residential campus, with more than 84% of students living away from home. As of fall 2023, Utah State had 28,063 enrolled students, including 20,259 at its main Logan campus. The university has a presence statewide, with a total of 30 statewide campuses and more than 50 research institutes and centers. Among these research institutes is the Space Dynamics Laboratory (SDL), which is the sole University Affiliated Research Center (UARC) for the United States Missile Defense Agency, and a UARC for the United States Department of Defense. According to the National Science Foundation, USU was ranked 83rd nationally and 54th among public universities for total research and development revenue and expenditures, with $344.9 million in 2022. The university also hosts the second-oldest undergraduate research program in the United States. Utah State’s athletic teams, known as the Utah State Aggies, compete in Division I as members of the Mountain West Conference. Beginning July 1, 2026, the Utah State Aggies will compete in the Pac-12 Conference.
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Notes
These are items that bear looking into more closely.
- This institution’s six year bachelors graduation rate is 59.1%, so approximately 2/5 of undergrads who enroll do not earn a bachelors degree from here.
Overview of institution
This, and the rest of the page, use info from the most recent year available, generally 2023.
Institution kind: Doctoral Universities: Very High Research Activity
Undergrad program: Balanced arts & sciences/professions, high graduate coexistence
Graduate program: Research Doctoral: Comprehensive programs, with medical/veterinary school
Enrollment profile: Very high undergraduate (see more details below)
Average net price for undergrads on financial aid: $14,577 . This is 70% the average cost of Harvard.
Actual price for your family: Go here to see what your family may be asked to pay. It can be MUCH lower than the average price but also higher for some.
Size and setting: Four-year, large, primarily nonresidential
In state percentage: 72% of first year students come from Utah
In US percentage: 100% of first year students come from the US
Graduation rate (within 6 years) for students seeking a Bachelors: 59.1% (this is what is usually reported as “graduation rate”)
Graduation rate (within 4 years) for students seeking a Bachelors: 27.5%
Student to tenure-stream faculty ratio: 23.3 (undergrads to tenure-stream faculty) [Tenure explained]
Student to faculty ratio: 15.9 (undergrads to all faculty)
Degrees offered: Certificate of less than 1 year, Certificate of less than 12 weeks, Certificate of at least 12 weeks but less than 1 year, Certificate of at least 1 year but less than 2 years, Associate’s degree, Bachelor’s degree, Postbaccalaureate certificate, Master’s degree, Post master’s certificate, Doctor’s degree: research scholarship, Doctor’s degree: professional practice
Schedule: Semester
Institution provides on campus housing: Yes
Dorm capacity: There are enough dorm beds for 3487 students
Freshmen required to live on campus: No
Advanced placement (AP) credits used: Yes
Disabilities: 6.82 percent of undergrads are registered as having disabilities.
Map
Comparisons
The sections below show this institution compared with others. The ones listed are ones it has identified as peers, who consider themselves peers, and/or who the federal government considers peers. If a comparison school has the same value as the focal school, its cell is grayed out. In fields where there is a common view that higher (or lower) values are better, the best values are in blue, the worst values are in red. If there isn’t a sense of a particular value being better, values are shown in varying shades of green. Arrows show where there is a signficant trend over time for a school. You can swipe across the table to see more of it; the focal school column is always visible.
- Utah State University lists these schools as ones to compare itself within federal IPEDS data, and they do the same back: University of Alaska Fairbanks, University of Nevada-Reno, Montana State University, University of Idaho, New Mexico State University-Main Campus, University of Wyoming
- Utah State University compares itself to these institutions, but not vice versa: University of California-Davis, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, University of Arizona, Oregon State University, Washington State University, Kansas State University, Colorado State University-Fort Collins
- These institutions compare themselves to Utah State University, but not vice versa: Brigham Young University, Rutgers University-New Brunswick, Texas Tech University, University of Vermont, Iowa State University, Idaho State University, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University-Daytona Beach, University of St Thomas, Texas State University, Kent State University at Kent, Brigham Young University-Idaho, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University-Prescott, South Dakota State University, Northern Arizona University, Rutgers University-Newark, SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry, Old Dominion University, Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville
Enrollment
General
Teaching
Tenure track faculty are those who are eligible for tenure. This includes both pre-tenure and tenured faculty. Once faculty get tenure, they are (generally) protected from being fired for intellectual reasons, helping to ensure their freedom in teaching and research. They can still lose their positions for misconduct, financial problems, not fulfilling their duties, or other reasons.
Non-tenure track faculty are not eligible for tenure. Some are hired one semester at a time, some have multi-year contracts. They typically have a higher teaching load than tenure track faculty, leaving less time for research or other creative endeavors. They are also easier to fire than tenured faculty. Sometimes they are external experts (a noted musician, a former senator) who are hired to teach some classes without the expected permanence of a tenure-track position.
Note that this chart uses US federal demographic data: it only has two genders and a specified set of ethnicities and races.
Having a low student to faculty ratio is considered a good thing by many, as it can mean more individual attention.
Geography
This has information on the location of the institution. See the about page for more information on what the metrics are and how they are calculated.
Financial Aid
Graduation
Note these are bachelors graduation rates in six years, not four (this is standard). Sample sizes can be small for some demographic groups with few individuals in a school, leading to large year-to-year fluctuations and often extreme values for those groups (if there are two individuals in the class with a given identity, the possible graduation rates are 0%, 50%, or 100% depending on whether zero, one, or both students graduate within six years).
Library
Libraries are changing rapidly. Note that how institutions count digital collections may vary.
Diversity
The US Census Bureau has a diversity index that goes from 0 to 1. In their words, “A 0-value indicates that everyone in the population has the same racial and ethnic characteristics. A value close to 1 indicates that everyone in the population has different racial and ethnic characteristics.” This uses their formula, but with the resolution available for the federal IPEDS data (which does not separate for a given demographic group whether members identify as Hispanic or not). This metric is about heterogeneity within the population, not the proportion of the population that comes from historically excluded groups.
Following the practice of the census, the index is multiplied by 100 to give the percentage probability a random pair of individuals will have a different background. Most institutions argue that diversity is a benefit, so by default a higher number is listed as better, but there may be cases where this measure does not reflect the mission of a college (for example, 70% of the students at a tribal college or university may be American Indian: that could be low-scoring by this metric but should not be read as “bad” given the institution’s mission).
These numbers are based on the most recent year available, generally 2023, which predates effects of the US Supreme Court’s striking down of affirmative action. This has often changed, sometimes dramatically, the incoming student demographics at some institutions.
Overall diversity
Freshman profile
Demographic data for first time degree-seeking students. Note that this uses US federal demographic data: it only has two genders and a specified set of ethnicities and races.
Freshman geography
Test scores
SAT scores
ACT scores
Majors
This presents information on the number of majors and the median earnings one and five years after graduation for people who got a degree from this institution in that field. The earnings are for those who are working and not enrolled in further education. The earnings data (from the federal college scorecard) also has information on earnings for those categorized as ‘MALE’ and ‘NOMALE’ – for readability, these are recategorized here as “Men” and “Women”, respectively, which adopts the gender binary used in other federal data. “W/M earnings ratio” is the median earnings of women divided by men, as a percentage.