What You'll Actually Pay
Price after grants
$20,833 to $42,668 a year, depending on income.
College Scorecard 2024 estimate
See the price at your income ↑Sticker price
Full cost before aid: $73,178 a year. Average need-based aid package: $46,928.Aid and debt
41.8%
receive need-based grants
$30,333
average debt at graduation
2,772
students got merit aid
about 56% of undergraduates
$21,535
average merit award
Getting In
Key dates
Transfer Deadlines
Test scores
SAT, middle 50% of those who submitted: 1230–1383 · 19% of the class submitted
ACT, middle 50% of those who submitted: 29–32 · 6% of the class submitted
36.1% were in the top 10% of their high school class.
What they value
- Very important
- Course rigor (AP/IB)
- GPA
- Important
- Recommendations
- Extracurriculars
- Demonstrated interest
- Considered
- SAT/ACT scores
- Personal essay
- Character
- First-gen status
- Volunteer work
- Work experience
- Not considered
- Class rank
- Special talent
- Legacy status
- Where you're from
- In-state residency
What this means for you
Gonzaga rates course rigor as Very Important, and your recommendations, your activities, and demonstrated interest as Important.
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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. Depth and leadership in a few activities matter more than a long list. And showing genuine engagement with this school may help your application.
Gonzaga rates demonstrated interest 'Important' — real weight in the decision.
Source: Common Data Set 2025–26, Section C7 (admissions factors)
Gonzaga just showed you what it values in an application. Use that to write a Why-Gonzaga essay that's actually about you — not a template.
Get sourced starting points for your essayStudent Life
47.4% of Gonzaga classes have fewer than 20 students.
47.4%
under 20 students
52.2%
20 to 49
0.4%
50 or more
Every class section counts, labs and seminars included; first-year courses tend to be larger. Gonzaga CDS 2025–26, I-3.
11:1
student:faculty ratio
Campus life
45.6%
first-years from out of state
52%
live on campus
0%
of men in fraternities
0%
of women in sororities
Who attends
- White61.5%
- Hispanic15%
- Multiracial8.6%
- Asian6.4%
- Unknown / other2.1%
- Black1.3%
Enrolled undergraduates; international students are counted separately and not included. Gonzaga CDS 2025–26, B2.
Popular majors
Will They Graduate?
74.8% of Gonzaga students graduate in 4 years.
74.8%
finish in 4 years
Entered fall 2019
85.4%
finish in 6 years
Entered fall 2019
90.2%
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
85.9% finish in 6 years, against 85.4% of all students.
Pell Grant students finish at about the same rate as everyone else.
City & Culture
Beyond the data — what it's actually like to spend four years in Spokane.
Spokane is Washington's second-largest city, sitting on the Spokane River in the state's Inland Northwest — dry, four-season, and a world away from the coastal, tech-dense side of the state most people picture.
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Gonzaga's campus sits along the river just east of downtown, close enough to walk into the city's restaurants, minor-league ballpark and the Centennial Trail that follows the river through both.
The City
Mid-size city
Spokane, WA
Best For
Notable alumni
Notable Alumni
John Stockton
Played at Gonzaga from 1980 to 1984 and left as the NBA's all-time leader in assists and steals over a 19-year career with the Utah Jazz. He was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2009, and his number 12 is retired by both the Jazz and Gonzaga.
Class of 1984
Bing Crosby
Enrolled at Gonzaga in 1920 and attended for three years without earning a degree before leaving for a career in music and film that included an Academy Award for Best Actor. Gonzaga later awarded him an honorary doctorate in 1937, and his childhood home stands on campus today as a museum of his life and career.
Rui Hachimura
Played at Gonzaga from 2016 to 2019, then left before his final year of eligibility to enter the 2019 NBA draft, where the Washington Wizards took him ninth overall — the first Japanese-born player ever selected in the first round.
Thomas Foley
Attended Gonzaga for three years before completing his degree and law degree at the University of Washington. He returned to teach at Gonzaga's School of Law from 1958 to 1959, then represented Eastern Washington in Congress for three decades and served as Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1989 to 1995.
Alumni selected for name recognition and range of fields. Not from the Common Data Set.
Traditions
Traditions
The Kennel Club
Gonzaga's student section at men's basketball games, one of the most recognized student fan sections in college basketball and a defining piece of campus identity even for students who never play a varsity sport.
McCarthey Athletic Center
Known on campus as "The Kennel," the on-campus arena that replaced the much smaller Martin Centre in 2004 as Gonzaga basketball's home.
A.M.D.G.
Ad majorem Dei gloriam — "for the greater glory of God" — the Jesuit motto that appears on the university's coat of arms and threads through Gonzaga's mission as a Catholic, Jesuit institution.
Weekend escapes from Spokane
Weekend Escapes
Within driving distance from Spokane
Coeur d'Alene, Idaho
About 30 minutesA lake resort town just across the state line, popular for a quick escape to the water or the beach along Lake Coeur d'Alene.
Schweitzer Mountain, Idaho
About 1 hour 30 minutesOne of the closer ski resorts to campus, in the Selkirk Mountains above Sandpoint.
Seattle, Washington
About 4 hours 30 minutes, or a short flight from SpokaneThe bigger city on the other side of the state, for students who want a weekend of the coast, Puget Sound and Washington's largest metro area.
Getting there and game days
Getting There & Game Days
Nearest airport
Spokane International Airport (GEG)
About 15 minutes from campus
For international flights: Seattle-Tacoma International (SEA) — about 4 hours 30 minutes by road, or a short connecting flight from spokane.
Pro sports nearby
- Spokane Indians MiLB (Single-A)
- Spokane Chiefs WHL
- Seattle Seahawks NFLAbout 4 hours 30 minutes away
- Seattle Mariners MLBAbout 4 hours 30 minutes away
Internships and jobs nearby
Career Proximity
Spokane is the largest city between Seattle and Minneapolis, so it functions as the region's own hub for healthcare, finance and manufacturing rather than a satellite of a bigger metro.
Top Industries Nearby
Major Employers
- Providence Health Care
- MultiCare Deaconess
- Avista Corporation
- Itron
- STCU
Spokane itself; Seattle is about 4 hours 30 minutes away for technology and finance
Who thrives here
Who Thrives Here
Gonzaga's defining trait is what's missing: 0% of men join fraternities and 0% of women join sororities, unusual for a school this size, in a campus where 52% of undergraduates live in university housing. Admission is real but not a lottery — 79.6% of applicants were admitted, and the school reads GPA and course rigor as Very Important while treating standardized tests as merely Considered: only 19% of enrolled first-years submitted an SAT score at all. Classes stay small on purpose — an 11:1 student-to-faculty ratio and not a single class section over 100 students, with 99.6% under 50 — but that intimacy comes at a real price: $59,510 in tuition and required fees, aid that meets 82% of demonstrated need on average, and $30,333 in debt for students who borrow by graduation. The trade-off shows up in pace rather than in who finishes: 74.8% graduate within four years, rising to 85.4% within six, and that six-year rate holds almost identically for Pell recipients (85.9%) — a smaller gap between income groups than at many larger peer schools.