What You'll Actually Pay
Price after grants
$10,582 to $22,496 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: $24,018 a year in-state. Average need-based aid package: $15,243.Aid and debt
39.5%
receive need-based grants
$28,851
average debt at graduation
9,406
students got merit aid
about 36% of undergraduates
$8,255
average merit award
Getting In
Key dates
Test scores
SAT, middle 50% of those who submitted: 1153–1360 · 12% of the class submitted
ACT, middle 50% of those who submitted: 21–28 · 45% of the class submitted
What they value
- Very important
- Course rigor (AP/IB)
- GPA
- Important
- SAT/ACT scores
- Considered
- Class rank
- Personal essay
- Recommendations
- Extracurriculars
- Special talent
- Character
- Where you're from
- In-state residency
- Volunteer work
- Work experience
- Not considered
- First-gen status
- Legacy status
- Demonstrated interest
What this means for you
Iowa State rates course rigor as Very 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.
Iowa 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)
Iowa State just showed you what it values in an application. Use that to write a Why-Iowa State essay that's actually about you — not a template.
Get sourced starting points for your essayStudent Life
30.7% of Iowa State classes have fewer than 20 students.
30.7%
under 20 students
44.1%
20 to 49
25.2%
50 or more
Every class section counts, labs and seminars included; first-year courses tend to be larger. Iowa State CDS 2025–26, I-3.
19:1
student:faculty ratio
Campus life
31%
live on campus
15%
of men in fraternities
15%
of women in sororities
Who attends
- White75.7%
- Hispanic7.7%
- Asian4.3%
- Multiracial3.5%
- Black2.6%
- Unknown / other2.3%
Enrolled undergraduates; international students are counted separately and not included. Iowa State CDS 2025–26, B2.
Popular majors
Will They Graduate?
57.4% of Iowa State students graduate in 4 years.
57.4%
finish in 4 years
Entered fall 2019
76.7%
finish in 6 years
Entered fall 2019
89.09%
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
69.7% finish in 6 years, against 76.7% of all students.
A 7-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 Ames.
Ames is a college town in the plainest sense: the university is the region's largest employer by an order of magnitude, and Campustown sits immediately south of central campus across Lincoln Way with the cheap food, coffee and bars a student reaches on foot.
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Downtown Ames and its Main Street are about a mile north and are where the town's own life happens. Des Moines, the state capital, is roughly 35 minutes south on I-35, and that is the honest answer to where the airport, the concerts and most of the internships are. Campus itself is a genuine draw rather than a backdrop — two art museums, a sculpture garden and one of the largest public art collections on any American campus, plus a 17-acre public garden with a butterfly conservatory that students get into free. What you do not get is a city, and central Iowa winters are long and open.
The City
College town
Ames, IA
Best For
Notable alumni
Notable Alumni
George Washington Carver
Born into slavery, he came to Iowa State in 1891, took a bachelor's degree in 1894 and a master's in 1896, and was appointed to the faculty as the university's first African American professor before his agricultural work at Tuskegee reshaped Southern farming.
Class of 1894
Carrie Chapman Catt
The only woman in her graduating class, she went on to lead the National American Woman Suffrage Association through the ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920 and founded the League of Women Voters months before it passed.
Class of 1880
Ted Kooser
Born in Ames and educated here, he was named the thirteenth United States Poet Laureate in 2004 and won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for Delights & Shadows.
Dan Gable
A two-time NCAA and three-time Big Eight champion who won 117 consecutive matches as a Cyclone before losing his last, then took 1972 Olympic gold in Munich without surrendering a single point.
Alumni selected for name recognition and range of fields. Not from the Common Data Set.
Traditions
Traditions
Campaniling
A student officially becomes an Iowa Stater by being kissed under the campanile at the stroke of midnight. The bells inside it — donated by one of the university's first graduates — first rang in 1899, and a carillonneur still plays twenty-minute concerts at 11:50 each weekday during term.
Walking around the Zodiac
A bronze zodiac is set into the north entry floor of the Memorial Union, and students step around it rather than on it — the campus verdict since about 1929 is that treading on it costs you your next exam. If you do tread on it, a coin in the Fountain of the Four Seasons is held to lift the curse. The hall it leads into is Gold Star Hall, the war memorial the Memorial Union is named for.
Lancelot and Elaine on Lake LaVerne
A pair of swans has lived on the lake at the campus entrance under the same two names since 1935. The attached superstition: walk around Lake LaVerne three times in silence with the person you love and you are meant to end up together.
Weekend escapes from Ames
Weekend Escapes
Within driving distance from Ames
Des Moines
35 minutesThe state capital and the region's only real city — the East Village, the arts centre, the airport and the three pro teams are all here, straight down I-35.
Ledges State Park and Boone
25 minutesSandstone bluffs and creek crossings in one of Iowa's oldest state parks, with the scenic-railroad town of Boone next door. The standard cheap, close escape when a weekend has to fit between classes.
Minneapolis–St. Paul
3 hours 30 minutesThe nearest metro with major-league everything, and the airport most students flying overseas actually leave from.
Getting there and game days
Getting There & Game Days
Nearest airport
Des Moines International Airport (DSM)
About 40 minutes from campus
For international flights: Minneapolis–St. Paul International Airport (MSP) — about 3 hours 30 minutes by road, or a short connecting flight.
Pro sports nearby
- Iowa Cubs MiLBAbout 35 minutes away
- Iowa Wild AHLAbout 35 minutes away
- Iowa Wolves NBA G LeagueAbout 35 minutes away
- Minnesota Vikings NFLAbout 3 hours 30 minutes away
- Kansas City Chiefs NFLAbout 3 hours 30 minutes away
Internships and jobs nearby
Career Proximity
Iowa State's career geography is unusual in that a national laboratory is on the campus itself: Ames National Laboratory is a Department of Energy lab that describes itself as unique among the seventeen DOE labs in sitting physically on a major research university's campus, and it draws on undergraduate as well as graduate talent. Next to it, the university's research park has direct access to thousands of acres of contiguous university-owned test ground, which is why ag-tech field trials happen here rather than being flown to. The federal animal-health complex in Ames is a second draw for veterinary and animal-science students. Everything else is a 35-minute drive: Des Moines is one of the country's insurance and financial-services centres, and the ag and equipment giants of central Iowa recruit from campus directly. Iowa State's own graduate follow-up survey shows a large share of employed graduates taking their first job inside Iowa — the pipeline here is deep but decidedly regional.
Top Industries Nearby
Major Employers
- Iowa State University
- Ames National Laboratory
- USDA National Centers for Animal Health
- Workiva
- Danfoss
- Principal Financial Group
- John Deere
- Corteva Agriscience
Des Moines — about 35 minutes south
Who thrives here
Who Thrives Here
Iowa State admits 87.9% of applicants and enrolls 26,346 undergraduates in Ames, built around engineering, agriculture and design. The scale shows in the classroom: 19 students per faculty member and only 30.7% of sections under 20. 31% live in university housing and Greek life reaches 15% of men and 15% of women, so campus is residential for first-years and rented after that. On money, Iowa State meets 65.2% of demonstrated need and its graduates carry $28,851 in average debt. The completion numbers are what to weigh: 89.09% come back for a second year, but 57.4% finish in four years and 76.7% within six, so budgeting for a fifth year is the realistic plan for a lot of students here.