What You'll Actually Pay
Price after grants
$7,068 to $28,546 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: $32,198 a year in-state. Average need-based aid package: $18,200.Aid and debt
30.7%
receive need-based grants
$31,468
average debt at graduation
3,691
students got merit aid
about 9% of undergraduates
$6,189
average merit award
Getting In
Key dates
Test scores
SAT, middle 50% of those who submitted: 1100–1310 · 52% of the class submitted
ACT, middle 50% of those who submitted: 25–31 · 7% of the class submitted
20.2% were in the top 10% of their high school class.
What they value
- Very important
- GPA
- Important
- Course rigor (AP/IB)
- Personal essay
- Extracurriculars
- Considered
- SAT/ACT scores
- Special talent
- Character
- First-gen status
- Volunteer work
- Work experience
- Demonstrated interest
- Not considered
- Class rank
- Recommendations
- Legacy status
- Where you're from
- In-state residency
What this means for you
Michigan State rates three things you can work on as Important: course rigor, your essay, and your activities.
MoreLess
AP, IB, and dual-enrollment classes strengthen an application here — a strong mix of them helps. A strong essay can differentiate an otherwise average application. And depth and leadership in a few activities matter more than a long list.
Michigan State rates demonstrated interest 'Considered' — it can tip a close decision, without being decisive.
Source: Common Data Set 2025–26, Section C7 (admissions factors)
Michigan State just showed you what it values in an application. Use that to write a Why-Michigan State essay that's actually about you — not a template.
Get sourced starting points for your essayStudent Life
Class sizes aren't reported by this school.
17:1
student:faculty ratio
Campus life
18.8%
first-years from out of state
40%
live on campus
12%
of men in fraternities
13%
of women in sororities
Who attends
- White67%
- Asian7.8%
- Hispanic7.2%
- Black6.8%
- Multiracial4.8%
- Unknown / other1.4%
Enrolled undergraduates; international students are counted separately and not included. Michigan State CDS 2025–26, B2.
Popular majors
Will They Graduate?
62% of Michigan State students graduate in 4 years.
62%
finish in 4 years
Entered fall 2019
81%
finish in 6 years
Entered fall 2019
90.5%
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
71.6% finish in 6 years, against 81% of all students.
A 9.4-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 East Lansing.
East Lansing is a college town in the fullest sense — the university is the reason it exists, and during term the student body outnumbers the permanent population.
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Grand River Avenue runs along the north edge of campus and supplies the bars, restaurants and shops; the state capital, Lansing, is three miles west and is where the internships and the non-student jobs are. The campus itself is unusually green for its size, with 5,200 acres, an arboretum-grade tree collection and the Red Cedar River through the middle. What you get is a self-contained, walkable, intensely social version of college. What you do not get is a big city, and winters are long.
The City
College town
East Lansing, MI
Best For
Notable alumni
Notable Alumni
Eli Broad
Built two Fortune 500 companies from nothing and became one of the largest philanthropists in American education and the arts; MSU's business college carries his name.
Class of 1954
Richard Ford
Novelist who won both the Pulitzer Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award for Independence Day, the only writer to take both for the same book.
Class of 1966
Earvin "Magic" Johnson
Led Michigan State to the 1979 national championship before five NBA titles with the Lakers, and has since built a substantial business and investment career.
Gretchen Whitmer
Governor of Michigan, who earned both her undergraduate degree and her law degree here.
Class of 1993
Sam Raimi
Director of the Evil Dead films and the original Spider-Man trilogy, who began making films while studying here.
Alumni selected for name recognition and range of fields. Not from the Common Data Set.
Traditions
Traditions
Sparty
The nine-foot Spartan statue dedicated in 1945, originally in terra cotta and recast in bronze in 2005. It is the campus's photograph, meeting point and rallying spot, and it gets guarded by students before rivalry games.
The Beaumont Tower carillon
A 49-bell carillon in the 1929 tower at the heart of the old campus, played every Wednesday at noon during term. The tower stands on the site of the first building of the first land-grant college in the country, and campus legend holds that a couple who kiss in its shadow become true Spartans.
The Izzone
The student section at the Breslin Center, named for basketball coach Tom Izzo — students camp for spots, learn the routines, and it is one of the loudest environments in college basketball.
The Rock
A boulder on Farm Lane repainted constantly by students and organizations, who camp overnight to claim it. It has been painted thousands of times over and is the campus's rolling noticeboard.
Weekend escapes from East Lansing
Weekend Escapes
Within driving distance from East Lansing
Detroit
1.5 hoursThe nearest big city, with the pro sports, museums and music that East Lansing does not have.
Grand Rapids
1 hourMichigan's second city — breweries, art and a cheaper weekend than Detroit.
Lake Michigan beaches
2 hoursGrand Haven, Saugatuck and the dunes along the western shore — the standard Michigan summer weekend.
Ann Arbor
1 hourThe rival campus and a genuinely good college town in its own right.
Traverse City and northern Michigan
3.5 hoursCherry country, Sleeping Bear Dunes and the closest thing to a proper holiday drive — a long-weekend trip rather than a day out.
Getting there and game days
Getting There & Game Days
Nearest airport
Capital Region International Airport (LAN)
15 minutes from campus
For international flights: Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport (DTW) — about 1 hour 20 minutes by road.
Pro sports nearby
- Detroit Lions NFL
- Detroit Tigers MLB
- Detroit Pistons NBA
- Detroit Red Wings NHL
Internships and jobs nearby
Career Proximity
Michigan State's career reach comes from two places its geography hands it. The first is the state capital three miles west, which makes government, policy and public-health internships an ordinary commute rather than a summer relocation. The second is the automotive and mobility corridor around Detroit, ninety minutes east, where the engineering and supply-chain programs have decades of pipeline into Ford, GM and Stellantis — and MSU's supply chain management program in particular is recruited nationally rather than regionally. Agriculture, food science and veterinary work draw on the land-grant network across the whole state.
Top Industries Nearby
Major Employers
- General Motors
- Ford Motor Company
- Sparrow Health System
- State of Michigan
- Auto-Owners Insurance
Lansing, the state capital — about 10 minutes west; metro Detroit is roughly 90 minutes away
Who thrives here
Who Thrives Here
Michigan State is a land-grant campus of 5,200 acres with the Red Cedar River running through the middle of it, and at 41,415 undergraduates it functions as a small city: 40% live in university housing, which at this scale means one of the largest residence systems in the country. Greek life takes 12% of men and 13% of women, so it shapes a slice of social life rather than the whole of it; the carillon in Beaumont Tower ringing at noon and the Izzone student section filling the Breslin Center are the more universal versions of belonging here. It is a genuinely accessible school — 83.2% of applicants admitted, 76.9% of undergraduates from Michigan — and the gap between $17,256 in-state and $44,640 out-of-state tuition and fees is the single number that decides whether it is a bargain for a given family. Outcomes hold up at this size: 90.5% of first-years return, 62% finish in four years and 81% in six. The caution is money. Michigan State meets 60% of demonstrated need, borrowers graduate owing $31,468, and Pell recipients finish within six years at 71.6% — nearly ten points behind the 81% overall, which is what an aid shortfall looks like in an outcome.