What You'll Actually Pay
Price after grants
$14,668 to $28,079 a year for in-state students, depending on income.
College Scorecard 2024 estimate · in-state rates
See the price at your income ↑Sticker price
Full cost before aid: $30,785 a year in-state. Average need-based aid package: $13,142.Aid and debt
$36,063
average debt at graduation
1,090
students got merit aid
about 5% of undergraduates
$4,590
average merit award
Not reported by this school: share receiving need-based grants.
Getting In
Key dates
Test scores
SAT, middle 50% by section: Reading 610–690 · Math 610–700. No combined range is published.
ACT, middle 50% of those who submitted: 27–31 · 2% of the class submitted
27% were in the top 10% of their high school class.
What they value
- Very important
- Course rigor (AP/IB)
- GPA
- SAT/ACT scores
- Important
- Class rank
- Recommendations
- Considered
- Personal essay
- Extracurriculars
- Special talent
- Character
- First-gen status
- Where you're from
- Volunteer work
- Work experience
- Not considered
- Legacy status
- In-state residency
- Demonstrated interest
What this means for you
Buffalo rates course rigor as Very Important, and your recommendations as Important.
MoreLess
Rigor means AP, IB, and dual enrollment carry real weight — make sure your mix of AP or IB courses is strong. Recommendations matter here too — a recommender who knows you well helps.
Buffalo doesn't consider demonstrated interest in admissions at all — visits and follow-up emails won't move the needle here.
Source: Common Data Set 2025–26, Section C7 (admissions factors)
Buffalo just showed you what it values in an application. Use that to write a Why-Buffalo essay that's actually about you — not a template.
Get sourced starting points for your essayStudent Life
32.4% of Buffalo classes have fewer than 20 students.
32.4%
under 20 students
48.7%
20 to 49
18.9%
50 or more
Every class section counts, labs and seminars included; first-year courses tend to be larger. Buffalo CDS 2025–26, I-3.
12:1
student:faculty ratio
Campus life
3.7%
first-years from out of state
35%
live on campus
0.3%
of men in fraternities
2%
of women in sororities
Who attends
- White42.3%
- Asian18.5%
- Hispanic10.1%
- Black9.9%
- Multiracial4.3%
- Unknown / other3.5%
Enrolled undergraduates; international students are counted separately and not included. Buffalo CDS 2025–26, B2.
Popular majors
Will They Graduate?
58% of Buffalo students graduate in 4 years.
58%
finish in 4 years
Entered fall 2019
72.8%
finish in 6 years
Entered fall 2019
84.8%
return after first year
Finishing late means paying for extra semesters, so the 4-year rate is the one that shows the cost.
Students with Pell Grants
67.6% finish in 6 years, against 72.8% of all students.
A 5.2-point gap: Pell Grant students finish less often than students overall.
City & Culture
Beyond the data — what it's actually like to spend four years in Buffalo.
Buffalo is a mid-sized city at the eastern end of Lake Erie, with the university's main undergraduate campus in suburban Amherst to the north and a second downtown medical campus.
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Niagara Falls is half an hour away and Toronto under two hours.
The City
Mid-size city
Buffalo, NY
Best For
Notable alumni
Notable Alumni
Wolf Blitzer
CNN anchor and long-running host of The Situation Room, who took a BA in history at Buffalo
Class of 1970
Robin Li
Co-founder and chief executive of Baidu, who earned a master's in computer science at Buffalo
Class of 1994
Winston Duke
Actor known for M'Baku in Black Panther, who earned a BA in theatre at Buffalo before Yale's drama school
Alumni selected for name recognition and range of fields. Not from the Common Data Set.
Traditions
Traditions
Oozefest
A mud volleyball tournament held each spring on North Campus, running since 1983 and among the largest of its kind.
The two-campus split
Most undergraduates study on North Campus in Amherst while the medical and dental schools sit downtown, with a shuttle and a metro line linking them. Which campus a programme sits on shapes the experience noticeably.
Distinguished Speakers Series
A long-running lecture series that has brought heads of state, Nobel laureates and writers to campus since 1986.
Weekend escapes from Buffalo
Weekend Escapes
Within driving distance from Buffalo
Niagara Falls
30 minutesThe falls and the Canadian border crossing, both immediately northwest.
Toronto
2 hoursThe nearest major international city, across the border — a passport makes it a routine weekend.
Ellicottville
1 hourThe nearest skiing, in the southern-tier hills.
Getting there and game days
Getting There & Game Days
Nearest airport
Buffalo Niagara International (BUF)
20 minutes from campus
For international flights: Toronto Pearson International (YYZ) — about 2 hours by road, including the border crossing.
Pro sports nearby
- Buffalo Bills NFL
- Buffalo Sabres NHL
Internships and jobs nearby
Career Proximity
Buffalo's pipeline is health care and biomedical research through the downtown medical campus, alongside advanced manufacturing across western New York.
Top Industries Nearby
Major Employers
- Kaleida Health
- Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center
- M&T Bank
- Moog
Toronto, 2 hours
Who thrives here
Who Thrives Here
Buffalo admits 80.6% of applicants into a 21,192-student undergraduate body, which makes it more reachable than its research standing suggests. For a New York family the price is the argument: $11,036 in tuition and fees against $32,466 from out of state. It reports a student-faculty ratio of 12 to 1, low for a public university of this size, though only 32.4% of sections have fewer than 20 students — the two figures together say small classes exist but are not what most weeks look like. Campus life is thinner than the enrolment implies: 35.0% live on campus and Greek life takes in 0.3% of men and 2% of women, so a large share of students commute to a university split across two campuses, with most undergraduate teaching north of the city in Amherst. Outcomes sit in the middle — 84.8% of first-years return, 58.0% finish in four years and 72.8% in six — and the money is the caution even in state, with 51.0% of demonstrated need met and $36,063 in average debt at graduation.