What You'll Actually Pay
Price after grants
$5,938 to $19,239 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: $25,720 a year in-state. Average need-based aid package: $16,050.Aid and debt
34.5%
receive need-based grants
$20,800
average debt at graduation
5,138
students got merit aid
about 15% of undergraduates
$4,380
average merit award
Getting In
A note for out-of-state applicants
Florida State University shares one out-of-state enrollment cap with several other public universities in Florida — the limit applies statewide, not to this school individually. If you're applying from outside Florida, your odds may be shaped by that shared, statewide limit rather than by Florida State University's own admissions choices alone.
Per BOG Regulation 7.006.
Key dates
Test scores
SAT, middle 50% of those who submitted: 1300–1410 · 64% of the class submitted
ACT, middle 50% of those who submitted: 29–32 · 36% of the class submitted
77.8% were in the top 10% of their high school class.
What they value
- Very important
- Course rigor (AP/IB)
- Important
- GPA
- SAT/ACT scores
- Personal essay
- Extracurriculars
- Special talent
- Character
- First-gen status
- Where you're from
- In-state residency
- Volunteer work
- Work experience
- Considered
- Class rank
- Not considered
- Recommendations
- Legacy status
- Demonstrated interest
What this means for you
Florida State rates course rigor as Very Important, and your essay, your activities, and your first-gen status as Important.
MoreLess
Rigor means AP, IB, and dual enrollment carry real weight — make sure your mix of AP or IB courses is strong. A strong essay can differentiate an otherwise average application. Depth and leadership in a few activities matter more than a long list. And being first-generation can help your application here.
Florida State 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)
Florida State just showed you what it values in an application. Use that to write a Why-Florida State essay that's actually about you — not a template.
Get sourced starting points for your essayStudent Life
57.7% of Florida State classes have fewer than 20 students.
57.7%
under 20 students
30.3%
20 to 49
12%
50 or more
Every class section counts, labs and seminars included; first-year courses tend to be larger. Florida State CDS 2025–26, I-3.
17:1
student:faculty ratio
Campus life
12.1%
first-years from out of state
20%
live on campus
18.5%
of men in fraternities
25.6%
of women in sororities
Who attends
- White55.8%
- Hispanic24.2%
- Black6.9%
- Multiracial4.7%
- Asian4%
- Unknown / other1.6%
Enrolled undergraduates; international students are counted separately and not included. Florida State CDS 2025–26, B2.
Popular majors
Will They Graduate?
74.9% of Florida State students graduate in 4 years.
74.9%
finish in 4 years
Entered fall 2019
85.8%
finish in 6 years
Entered fall 2019
96.6%
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
82.8% finish in 6 years, against 85.8% of all students.
A 3-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 Tallahassee.
Tallahassee is Florida's state capital and looks almost nothing like the rest of the state — rolling hills, live oaks hung with Spanish moss, and no beach anywhere in the city.
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FSU sits a few blocks from the Capitol, and with Florida A&M and a community college in the same town the population skews heavily toward students, which keeps the cost of living low and the social calendar full but empties the place out over the summer. The Gulf is about 45 minutes south and the nearest major city is a four-hour drive, so this is somewhere you settle into rather than a base for weekend city trips.
The City
Mid-size city
Tallahassee, FL
Best For
Notable alumni
Notable Alumni
Sara Blakely
Founded Spanx after cutting the feet off a pair of pantyhose, grew it into a global shapewear brand, and became one of the youngest self-made women billionaires; she is a National Inventors Hall of Fame inductee.
Norman Thagard
NASA astronaut on five spaceflights who in 1995 became the first American to launch aboard a Russian Soyuz and to live aboard the Mir space station, running 28 experiments across 115 days in orbit before returning on Atlantis.
Barry Jenkins
Wrote and directed Moonlight, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 2017 and earned him a shared Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay.
Jim Morrison
Frontman and lyricist of The Doors, one of the defining American rock bands of the 1960s.
Charlie Crist
Governor of Florida from 2007 to 2011, and later a member of the U.S. House of Representatives for the Tampa Bay area.
Charlie Ward
Won the 1993 Heisman Trophy by one of the largest margins in the award's history and quarterbacked Florida State to its first national championship in the 1994 Orange Bowl; he remains the only Heisman winner ever to play in the NBA.
Alumni selected for name recognition and range of fields. Not from the Common Data Set.
Traditions
Traditions
Osceola and Renegade
Before every home football game a student dressed as the Seminole leader Osceola rides an Appaloosa named Renegade to midfield and plants a flaming garnet-and-gold spear in the turf. It has run since 1978 with the express approval of the Seminole Tribe of Florida, which helped shape the regalia and the ritual — and that relationship is why FSU was granted an exemption from the NCAA's 2005 ban on Native American imagery.
The War Chant
The chant and its accompanying arm motion grew out of the student section at Doak Campbell Stadium during a 1984 game against Auburn, when fans kept singing a Marching Chiefs melody after the band had stopped playing. By 1986 the entire stadium was doing it, and it has since been copied — and argued over — well beyond Tallahassee.
The Sod Cemetery
In 1962 a professor dared the team to bring back a piece of turf from a win at Georgia, and the captain returned with a fistful of grass. Florida State players have dug up sod after designated road victories ever since, and more than a hundred bronze headstones now mark the plot near the practice fields, one for each 'sod game' won.
Weekend escapes from Tallahassee
Weekend Escapes
Within driving distance from Tallahassee
Wakulla Springs State Park
30 minutesOne of the largest and deepest freshwater springs in the world, with glass-bottom boat tours, manatees in winter and a 1930s lodge — the standard cheap afternoon out of Tallahassee.
St. George Island & Apalachicola
1 hour 30 minutesA barrier island of white sand with a state park at its eastern end, reached through an old Gulf oyster town. This is the beach students actually drive to, and it stays quiet compared with the rest of Florida's coast.
Atlanta
4 hours 15 minutesThe nearest major city and the region's job market — pro sport, concerts, and the airport most students connect through to get home or abroad.
Getting there and game days
Getting There & Game Days
Nearest airport
Tallahassee International Airport (TLH)
15 minutes from campus
For international flights: Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL) — about 4 hours 15 minutes by road.
Pro sports nearby
- Jacksonville Jaguars NFLAbout 2 hours 30 minutes away
- Orlando Magic NBAAbout 4 hours away
- Atlanta Braves MLBAbout 4 hours 15 minutes away
Internships and jobs nearby
Career Proximity
Tallahassee is the seat of Florida's government, so the legislature, the state agencies and the Florida Supreme Court sit within a few minutes of campus — which makes term-time internships in government, law and policy unusually easy to hold down here. The other local draw is research: FSU operates the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, the largest and highest-powered magnet lab in the world, out of Innovation Park just south of campus, alongside a small cluster of engineering employers. What Tallahassee does not have is a corporate centre, so students chasing finance, consulting or tech generally look to Jacksonville, Orlando or Atlanta for a summer.
Top Industries Nearby
Major Employers
- State of Florida
- Florida State University
- Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare
- National High Magnetic Field Laboratory
- Danfoss Turbocor
Jacksonville, about 2 hours 30 minutes east; Atlanta about 4 hours 15 minutes north
Who thrives here
Who Thrives Here
Florida State is a 488-acre campus a few blocks from the Florida Capitol, in a city that looks nothing like the rest of the state — no beach, and a population that empties out every summer. The numbers describe a school that is cheap to attend and hard to leave without a degree: 96.6% of first-years return, 74.9% graduate in four years and 85.8% within six, and its Pell recipients reach 82.8%, a gap of three points where most schools open a much wider one. Classes run smaller than the size of the place suggests — 57.7% of sections have fewer than 20 students, at 17 to 1 — and business and marketing takes 25.0% of the degrees it confers. Campus life leans Greek rather than residential: 18.5% of men and 25.6% of women join, while only 20.0% of undergraduates live in university housing, and the traditions are unusually literal ones — a student rides an Appaloosa to midfield and plants a burning spear before home games, and players dig up sod after designated road wins and bury it under bronze headstones by the practice fields. Two things to settle before applying. It requires the SAT or ACT, with a middle 50% of 1300-1410, so a student without scores has no route in. And it meets 66% of demonstrated need, which matters even at this price. Borrowers leave owing $20,800, which is less than one year of the $25,702 it charges an out-of-state student.