What You'll Actually Pay
Price after grants
$12,784 to $30,660 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: $32,696 a year in-state. Average need-based aid package: $19,833.Aid and debt
$27,831
average debt at graduation
8,415
students got merit aid
about 14% of undergraduates
$4,965
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: 1160–1390 · 77% of the class submitted
ACT, middle 50% of those who submitted: 24–32 · 19% of the class submitted
71.6% were in the top 10% of their high school class.
What they value
- Very important
- Course rigor (AP/IB)
- Class rank
- GPA
- Extracurriculars
- Special talent
- Important
- Personal essay
- First-gen status
- Where you're from
- In-state residency
- Considered
- SAT/ACT scores
- Recommendations
- Character
- Not considered
- Legacy status
What this means for you
Texas A&M rates course rigor and your activities as Very Important, and your essay and your first-gen status 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. Depth in a few activities beats a long list. A strong essay can differentiate an otherwise average application. And being first-generation can help your application here.
Texas A&M just showed you what it values in an application. Use that to write a Why-Texas A&M essay that's actually about you — not a template.
Get sourced starting points for your essayStudent Life
27.4% of Texas A&M classes have fewer than 20 students.
27.4%
under 20 students
44.9%
20 to 49
27.7%
50 or more
Every class section counts, labs and seminars included; first-year courses tend to be larger. Texas A&M CDS 2025–26, I-3.
20:1
student:faculty ratio
Campus life
5.1%
first-years from out of state
20.48%
live on campus
Who attends
- White49.9%
- Hispanic26.5%
- Asian14.7%
- Multiracial3.9%
- Black2.6%
- Unknown / other1.1%
Enrolled undergraduates; international students are counted separately and not included. Texas A&M CDS 2025–26, B2.
Popular majors
Will They Graduate?
62.8% of Texas A&M students graduate in 4 years.
62.8%
finish in 4 years
Entered fall 2019
85%
finish in 6 years
Entered fall 2019
94.8%
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
76% finish in 6 years, against 85% of all students.
A 9-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 College Station.
College Station exists because the university does, and that is the honest starting point: a town built around a 5,200-acre campus, roughly ninety minutes from the nearest big city in any direction.
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What that buys is a student culture with no competition for its attention — Northgate, the bar and restaurant strip directly across from campus, is where the town's nightlife is, and a home football Saturday at Kyle Field puts more people in one stadium than live in most Texas towns. What it costs is variety. There is no professional sports team, no major airport, and no second scene to switch to when the university's own rhythms get tiring. Houston and Austin are each about an hour and three quarters away by car, which makes them a day out rather than a Friday night, and a student without a car will feel that distance.
The City
College town
College Station, TX
Best For
Notable alumni
Notable Alumni
Rick Perry
The longest-serving governor in Texas history (2000-2015) and later US Secretary of Energy. He took an animal science degree here in 1972, was a Yell Leader and a member of the Corps of Cadets, and flew C-130s for the Air Force afterwards.
Class of 1972
Lowry Mays
Founded the San Antonio broadcasting company that became Clear Channel and then iHeartMedia, at one point the largest radio owner in the United States. He took a petroleum engineering degree here in 1957; the university's business school is named for his family.
Class of 1957
Michael Fossum
NASA astronaut with three spaceflights and seven spacewalks, and commander of the International Space Station on Expedition 29. He took a mechanical engineering degree here in 1980 and came back decades later to run the university's Galveston campus.
Class of 1980
Lyle Lovett
Four-time Grammy winner and one of the defining songwriters of Texas country. He studied journalism and German here, graduating in 1979, and wrote for The Battalion, the student newspaper, before making records.
Class of 1979
Von Miller
NFL linebacker, Super Bowl 50 MVP and an eight-time Pro Bowler. He finished a poultry science degree here and later built a commercial chicken business on it — a reminder that the agricultural half of this university is not ceremonial.
Alumni selected for name recognition and range of fields. Not from the Common Data Set.
Traditions
Traditions
Midnight Yell
The night before a home football game, tens of thousands of students walk into Kyle Field at midnight to practise the yells with the Yell Leaders. It is the closest thing American college football has to a religious service, and it is free, student-run and older than almost everyone who attends it.
Aggie Muster
Every April 21, Aggies gather here and at hundreds of gatherings worldwide to read the names of those who died in the past year. A friend answers "Here" for each name. It is the tradition current students most often name as the reason they understood what they had joined.
The Corps of Cadets
The largest uniformed student body outside the federal service academies, and the origin of the university — every student was a cadet until 1965. Cadets live together on the Quad and run their own chain of command; joining is a choice a first-year makes, and most students do not, but the Corps sets the tone of the place well beyond its own numbers.
Silver Taps
On the first Tuesday of a month in which a currently enrolled student has died, the campus lights go out, the crowd stands in silence in the Academic Plaza, and buglers play Taps three times from the Academic Building. Nobody speaks.
Weekend escapes from College Station
Weekend Escapes
Within driving distance from College Station
Houston
1 hour 40 minutesThe nearest very large city and the nearest professional sports, plus the Texas Medical Center and the energy industry that hires a lot of this university's graduates.
Austin
1 hour 45 minutesLive music, the Hill Country and the state Capitol — the standard weekend out for a student who wants a city that isn't Houston.
Galveston
2 hours 30 minutesThe nearest Gulf beach, and also a Texas A&M campus in its own right — the maritime and marine sciences programmes are there.
Getting there and game days
Getting There & Game Days
Nearest airport
Easterwood Field (CLL)
10 minutes from campus
For international flights: George Bush Intercontinental (IAH) — about 1 hour 40 minutes by car.
Pro sports nearby
- Houston Texans NFL
- Houston Astros MLB
- Houston Rockets NBA
- Houston Dynamo MLS
Internships and jobs nearby
Career Proximity
The job market is not in College Station; it is the ninety-minute drive in either direction. Houston is the world's energy capital and the site of the Texas Medical Center, the largest medical complex anywhere, and Johnson Space Center sits on its southeast edge. Austin adds semiconductors and software. Closer to home, the university's own RELLIS campus north of town runs testing and research facilities with industry partners, and the Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station is one of the largest engineering research agencies in the country.
Top Industries Nearby
Major Employers
- ExxonMobil
- Chevron
- NASA Johnson Space Center
- Texas Instruments
- Bechtel
Houston — about 1 hour 40 minutes by car, with no rail or transit link
Who thrives here
Who Thrives Here
Texas A&M admits 51.7% of applicants and draws 93.7% of its entering class from Texas: a flagship built around serving its own state, at an in-state price that is the reason many students choose it. What sets it apart from other large publics is how organised the culture is. Midnight Yell fills the stadium at midnight before home games, Muster reads the names of the Aggies who died that year each April, and the Corps of Cadets predates the rest of the university. A student who wants that will feel it everywhere; a student indifferent to it will mostly notice the scale — only 20.5% of undergraduates live in university housing, the ratio is 20 students per faculty member, and 27.4% of class sections have fewer than 20 students. The outcomes reward patience over speed: 94.8% come back for a second year and 85.0% finish within six, but 62.8% finish in four, aid covers 70% of need, and graduates who borrow leave with $27,831.