At a Glance
Clemson admits 42.4% of applicants.
What You'll Actually Pay
See what families at different income levels actually pay after aid.
What families actually pay, by income level
After grants and scholarships. Before loans. Public school prices shown at in-state rates.
Source: College Scorecard / IPEDS, 2024-25
Where the Sticker Price Goes
Based on average need-based grant. Actual cost varies by family income — see chart above.
Shown at in-state rates.
Debt at Graduation
32.9%
receive need-based grant aid
$39,721
average debt at graduation
Clemson graduates carry an average of $39,721 in debt.
Merit Aid
5,496
students received merit aid
$5,029
average merit award
Getting In
Clemson admits 42.4% of applicants.
SAT — Middle 50% of those who submitted · 38% of the class submitted
ACT — Middle 50% of those who submitted · 19% of the class submitted
54.57% were in the top 10% of their high school class.
What They Value
Academic
Nonacademic
Clemson University gives essays less weight than many schools — academics drive most admissions decisions here. Demonstrated interest is Not Considered here — campus visits and emails to admissions won't affect your odds.
Student Life
36.6% of Clemson classes have fewer than 20 students.
Share of undergraduate class sections at each size, from CDS Section I-3. More red = more large lectures.
At Clemson, 36.6% of your classes will have fewer than 20 students.
Class size data reflects all undergraduate sections including labs, seminars, and lectures. Large research universities often have smaller upper-division and graduate-level sections that improve the overall distribution. First and second-year students typically experience larger classes than these averages suggest.
Source: Common Data Set 2025–26, Section I-3 (class sizes)
16:1
student:faculty ratio
Campus Life
From out of state (freshman class)
46.4%
Men in fraternities
18.8%
Women in sororities
40.3%
Who Attends
Racial and ethnic breakdown of enrolled undergraduates, as reported in each school's Common Data Set. "Unknown / Other" includes students who did not report or selected "other."
Clemson's student body is 75.19% white.
Popular Majors
Will They Graduate?
Clemson graduates 70.7% of students in 4 years.
Graduating late means paying for extra semesters. The 6-year rate tells you who eventually finishes — the 4-year rate tells you what it actually costs.
Clemson graduates 70.7% of students in 4 years.
What finishing late actually costs
Based on each school's published cost of attendance. Public school costs shown at in-state rates.
Clemson
70.7%
4-yr grad rate
Extra year cost: $35,015*
* In-state cost of attendance. Out-of-state students pay significantly more.
Graduation rate data from Common Data Set 2025–26, Fall 2018 cohort (most recent available). 4-year rate = students completing in 4 years or less. 6-year rate = students completing within 6 years.
87.5%
Overall 6-yr rate
78.1%
Pell recipient rate
A 9.4 point graduation gap between lower-income and overall students suggests financial or academic challenges for some students.
Freshman Retention
94.1%
94.1% of first-year students return for sophomore year.
City & Culture
Beyond the data — what it's actually like to spend four years in Clemson.
Clemson is a small town in the Blue Ridge foothills of upstate South Carolina, sitting on the shore of Lake Hartwell with the university's land wrapped around it. Downtown is a walk from campus rather than a drive, which makes the whole place feel like one continuous campus, and it is genuinely beautiful — water on one side, mountains on the other. The trade-off is isolation and scale: this is a town of under 20,000 people, football weekends dominate the autumn calendar, and there is no big city nearby. Greenville is about 45 minutes east and is the closest thing to an urban outlet; Atlanta and Charlotte are both roughly two hours. A car matters here more than it would at a school in a city.
Notable Alumni
Harvey Gantt
Enrolled in January 1963 as the first Black student at Clemson, admitted only after a federal appeals court ordered it. He graduated with honors in architecture, built a practice designing schools and civic buildings across the Carolinas, and in 1983 was elected the first Black mayor of Charlotte.
Class of 1965
Charlie Blackwell-Thompson
NASA's first female launch director. She earned a computer engineering degree here, went to work at Kennedy Space Center after graduation, and ran the countdown for the Artemis I launch.
Class of 1988
Nikki Haley
Governor of South Carolina from 2011 to 2017 and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations from 2017 to 2019. She took her accounting degree here and was named to Clemson's board of trustees in 2021.
Class of 1994
Jeffrey Brown
Chief executive of the online bank Ally Financial for eight years and American Banker's Banker of the Year for 2022. He studied economics here.
Class of 1995
Nancy O'Dell
Co-anchor of Entertainment Tonight from 2011 to 2019, after more than a decade hosting Access Hollywood. She graduated summa cum laude in marketing here and returned in 2013 as commencement speaker.
Class of 1990
Brian Dawkins
Nine-time Pro Bowl safety for the Philadelphia Eagles and the first Clemson player elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He played here from 1992 to 1995 and led the ACC in interceptions as a senior.
Alumni selected for name recognition and range of fields. Not from the Common Data Set.
The City
College town
Clemson, SC
Best For
Traditions
Howard's Rock and Running Down the Hill
A rock carried back from Death Valley, California and given to coach Frank Howard sits on a pedestal at the top of the hill above Memorial Stadium's east end. It was mounted in 1966 and became ritual in 1967: players touch the rock, then run down the hill into the stadium.
The First Friday Parade
Since 1974, the football season opens with a parade down Highway 93 on the Friday before the first home game — Tiger Band, spirit squads and student organizations, with the town and campus lining the road. It is the unofficial start of the fall.
Solid Orange Friday
Every Friday, students, faculty, staff and alumni wear Clemson orange. It is the everyday version of the school's spirit — the whole campus visibly changes colour once a week, football season or not.
The $2 bill
When Georgia Tech ended its football series with Clemson in 1977, Clemson fans stamped $2 bills with tiger paws and spent them in Atlanta to show what the visiting crowd was worth. Fans still take stamped $2 bills to away games.
Clemson Ice Cream and Blue Cheese
The university has made its own ice cream since the 1920s and its own blue cheese since 1941, when a dairy professor first cured it in the abandoned Stumphouse Tunnel. Both are sold on campus at the student-run '55 Exchange.
Weekend Escapes
Within driving distance from Clemson
Greenville, SC
45 minutesThe nearest real city and the region's job market — a revitalised downtown built around Falls Park on the Reedy, the Liberty Bridge over the waterfall, and the Swamp Rabbit Trail.
Lake Jocassee and Devils Fork State Park
45 minutesA clear-water mountain lake in the Jocassee Gorges, reached through Devils Fork State Park — kayaking, camping, and waterfalls that can only be seen from the water.
Asheville, NC
1 hour 45 minutesA mountain city with a dense restaurant and brewery scene, the Blue Ridge Parkway, and the Biltmore Estate — the standard overnight trip.
Atlanta, GA
2 hours 15 minutesThe nearest major metro, straight down I-85 — professional sport, concerts, museums, and the airport most out-of-state students fly home from.
Charleston, SC
4 hoursThe long-weekend trip — the historic peninsula, the food, and the Folly Beach and Sullivan's Island coast beyond it.
Getting There & Game Days
Nearest airport
Greenville-Spartanburg International (GSP)
50 minutes from campus
For international flights: Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL) — about 2 hours 15 minutes by road.
Pro sports nearby
- Atlanta Braves MLB
- Atlanta Falcons NFL
- Atlanta Hawks NBA
- Carolina Panthers NFL
- Charlotte Hornets NBA
Career Proximity
Clemson sits at the western end of the I-85 corridor between Greenville and Spartanburg, one of the densest advanced-manufacturing regions in the country, and that is why engineering recruiting here is strong for a school in a town this small. BMW builds cars in Spartanburg, Michelin runs its North American business from Greenville, and Milliken has been headquartered in Spartanburg for generations. Clemson has planted its own campus in the middle of it: CU-ICAR, a 250-acre automotive research campus in Greenville founded with BMW, Michelin and Timken, where the automotive engineering graduate programs sit alongside company research teams. Closer in, Duke Energy's Oconee Nuclear Station is eight miles from campus. Finance and consulting mostly mean a drive — Charlotte and Atlanta are each about two hours.
Top Industries Nearby
Major Employers
- BMW Manufacturing
- Michelin North America
- Milliken & Company
- Duke Energy
- Prisma Health
Greenville — about 45 minutes east; Atlanta and Charlotte are each about 2 hours
Who Thrives Here
Clemson is a 24,060-undergraduate campus where Greek life organizes a good deal of the social calendar — 40% of women join sororities against 19% of men in fraternities — and where classes stay mid-sized, with 36.6% under 20 students and a 16-to-1 student-faculty ratio. The money is where families should look hardest: Clemson meets 48% of demonstrated need and graduates leave owing about $39,700, so an out-of-state family paying roughly $40,900 in tuition and fees is covering most of that gap itself. For residents the arithmetic is a different question entirely, which is rather the point of applying from inside South Carolina.