What You'll Actually Pay
Price after grants
$6,324 to $25,128 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: $28,801 a year in-state. Average need-based aid package: $17,332.Aid and debt
$32,238
average debt at graduation
13,886
students got merit aid
about 36% of undergraduates
$6,640
average merit award
Not reported by this school: share receiving need-based grants.
Getting In
Key dates
Test scores
SAT, middle 50% of those who submitted: 1200–1410 · 43% of the class submitted
ACT, middle 50% of those who submitted: 28–33 · 15% of the class submitted
31.1% were in the top 10% of their high school class.
What they value
- Very important
- Course rigor (AP/IB)
- Class rank
- GPA
- Important
- SAT/ACT scores
- Personal essay
- Considered
- Recommendations
- Extracurriculars
- Special talent
- Character
- First-gen status
- Where you're from
- In-state residency
- Volunteer work
- Work experience
- Not considered
- Legacy status
- Demonstrated interest
What this means for you
Indiana rates course rigor as Very Important, and your essay 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. A strong essay can differentiate an otherwise average application.
Indiana 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)
Indiana just showed you what it values in an application. Use that to write a Why-Indiana essay that's actually about you — not a template.
Get sourced starting points for your essayStudent Life
34.9% of Indiana classes have fewer than 20 students.
34.9%
under 20 students
45.2%
20 to 49
19.9%
50 or more
Every class section counts, labs and seminars included; first-year courses tend to be larger. Indiana CDS 2025–26, I-3.
17:1
student:faculty ratio
Campus life
46.4%
first-years from out of state
33.18%
live on campus
22.87%
of men in fraternities
21.66%
of women in sororities
Who attends
- White63.3%
- Asian11.6%
- Hispanic9%
- Multiracial5.7%
- Black4.7%
- Unknown / other1.2%
Enrolled undergraduates; international students are counted separately and not included. Indiana CDS 2025–26, B2.
Popular majors
Will They Graduate?
70.1% of Indiana students graduate in 4 years.
70.1%
finish in 4 years
Entered fall 2019
80%
finish in 6 years
Entered fall 2019
90.4%
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
68.8% finish in 6 years, against 80% of all students.
An 11.2-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 Bloomington.
Bloomington is a real town that happens to be built around a university, which is a different thing from a campus with shops attached.
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Kirkwood Avenue runs from the Sample Gates into a downtown with its own restaurants, venues and bookshops, and students spend their time there rather than commuting to somewhere more interesting — which matters, because fewer than a third of undergraduates live on campus. The surrounding country is limestone hills and lakes rather than flat Midwest farmland, so the outdoors is genuinely close. What you do not get is a city: Indianapolis is an hour north and supplies the airport, the pro sports and the big concerts, and Chicago is a four-hour drive.
The City
College town
Bloomington, IN
Best For
Notable alumni
Notable Alumni
Mark Cuban
Entrepreneur, investor and former owner of the Dallas Mavericks, who took a BS in management from the Kelley School.
Class of 1981
Will Shortz
Crossword editor of The New York Times, and the only person known to hold a degree in enigmatology — the study of puzzles — which he designed himself through IU's Individualized Major Program.
Class of 1974
Joshua Bell
Grammy-winning violinist and music director of the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, trained at the Jacobs School of Music.
Class of 1989
Hoagy Carmichael
Composer of "Stardust" and "Georgia on My Mind", who wrote his first songs as a student here while taking a law degree.
Class of 1926
Jane Pauley
Broadcast journalist, longtime host of NBC's Today and anchor of CBS Sunday Morning.
Class of 1972
Alumni selected for name recognition and range of fields. Not from the Common Data Set.
Traditions
Traditions
The Little 500
A bicycle race run since 1951, billed as the largest collegiate bike race in the United States and the centre of what students call the World's Greatest College Weekend. Riders qualify in teams, the proceeds fund working-student scholarships — more than $24 million so far — and the race is the one the film Breaking Away was built on.
The Rose Well House
A limestone pavilion built in 1908 over the cistern that once supplied the campus with water. Tradition holds that a couple who kiss inside it at the stroke of midnight will stay together, and it remains a standing spot for proposals.
Hoosier Hysteria
The basketball season's opening night at Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall, and the annual reminder that in Indiana the sport is closer to a civic religion than a pastime.
Weekend escapes from Bloomington
Weekend Escapes
Within driving distance from Bloomington
Brown County State Park
30 minutesIndiana's largest state park — wooded ridges and covered bridges, and the state's best-known autumn colour.
Indianapolis
1 hourThe nearest city, and where the airport, the pro sports and the touring concerts are.
Louisville
1 hour 45 minutesBourbon country and a bigger music and food scene, just across the Ohio River.
Chicago
4 hoursThe big-weekend trip, and the international airport for students flying home overseas.
Getting there and game days
Getting There & Game Days
Nearest airport
Indianapolis International Airport (IND)
1 hour from campus
For international flights: Chicago O'Hare International Airport (ORD) — about 4 hours by road.
Pro sports nearby
- Indianapolis Colts NFL
- Indiana Pacers NBA
- Indiana Fever WNBA
- Indy Eleven USL
Internships and jobs nearby
Career Proximity
Indiana's pipeline runs through the Kelley School, which is why a third of the degrees conferred here are in business or marketing and why finance, consulting and accounting firms recruit on campus at scale. Indianapolis an hour north is the nearest employment market of size — Eli Lilly anchors a deep pharmaceutical and life-sciences cluster, and the insurance and health-benefits sector around Elevance is unusually large for a city that size. The Jacobs School operates on a separate track entirely, feeding orchestras, opera houses and conservatory faculties rather than a regional job market.
Top Industries Nearby
Major Employers
- Eli Lilly and Company
- Elevance Health
- Cook Medical
- Salesforce
- Indiana University Health
Indianapolis — about 1 hour north; Chicago is roughly 4 hours northwest
Who thrives here
Who Thrives Here
Indiana is an 1,800-acre campus of 38,463 undergraduates where the front door is genuinely open — 75.9% of applicants are admitted — and the sorting happens after you arrive rather than before. A third of every degree it confers is in business or marketing (33.8%), which tells you where the gravity sits, while the Jacobs School of Music pulls an entirely different student onto the same quad; few campuses ask one library to serve both. Only 33.2% of undergraduates live on campus and about 23% of men and 22% of women join Greek life, so the centre of social life is Bloomington itself — a genuine college town rather than a city — and the spring bicycle race, the Little 500, is the weekend the calendar is built around. The trade-offs here are financial and they are specific: Indiana meets 65.5% of demonstrated need, borrowers leave owing $32,238, and 70.1% finish in four years against 80.0% in six. The aid shortfall shows up in an outcome too — Pell recipients finish within six years at 68.8%, more than eleven points behind the 80.0% overall.