At a Glance
Cincinnati admits 88% of applicants.
What You'll Actually Pay
See what families at different income levels actually pay after aid.
What families actually pay, by income level
After grants and scholarships. Before loans. Public school prices shown at in-state rates.
Source: College Scorecard / IPEDS, 2024-25
Where the Sticker Price Goes
Based on average need-based grant. Actual cost varies by family income — see chart above.
Shown at in-state rates.
Debt at Graduation
35.98%
receive need-based grant aid
$27,571
average debt at graduation
Cincinnati graduates carry an average of $27,571 in debt.
Merit Aid
6,251
students received merit aid
$6,180
average merit award
Getting In
Cincinnati admits 88% of applicants.
SAT — Middle 50% of those who submitted · 9% of the class submitted
ACT — Middle 50% of those who submitted · 25% of the class submitted
22.1% were in the top 10% of their high school class.
What They Value
Academic
Nonacademic
University of Cincinnati gives essays less weight than many schools — academics drive most admissions decisions here. Demonstrated interest is Considered — showing genuine engagement with this school may help your application.
Student Life
34.4% of Cincinnati classes have fewer than 20 students.
Share of undergraduate class sections at each size, from CDS Section I-3. More red = more large lectures.
At Cincinnati, 34.4% of your classes will have fewer than 20 students.
Class size data reflects all undergraduate sections including labs, seminars, and lectures. Large research universities often have smaller upper-division and graduate-level sections that improve the overall distribution. First and second-year students typically experience larger classes than these averages suggest.
Source: Common Data Set 2025–26, Section I-3 (class sizes)
19:1
student:faculty ratio
Campus Life
From out of state (freshman class)
22.5%
Live on campus
20.65%
Men in fraternities
7.21%
Women in sororities
9.07%
Who Attends
Racial and ethnic breakdown of enrolled undergraduates, as reported in each school's Common Data Set. "Unknown / Other" includes students who did not report or selected "other."
Cincinnati's student body is 68.1% white.
Popular Majors
Will They Graduate?
Cincinnati graduates 43.2% of students in 4 years.
Graduating late means paying for extra semesters. The 6-year rate tells you who eventually finishes — the 4-year rate tells you what it actually costs.
Cincinnati graduates 43.2% of students in 4 years.
What finishing late actually costs
Based on each school's published cost of attendance. Public school costs shown at in-state rates.
Cincinnati
43.2%
4-yr grad rate
Extra year cost: $32,171*
* In-state cost of attendance. Out-of-state students pay significantly more.
Graduation rate data from Common Data Set 2025–26, Fall 2018 cohort (most recent available). 4-year rate = students completing in 4 years or less. 6-year rate = students completing within 6 years.
75.04%
Overall 6-yr rate
62%
Pell recipient rate
A 13 point graduation gap between lower-income and overall students suggests financial or academic challenges for some students.
Freshman Retention
86%
86% of first-year students return for sophomore year.
City & Culture
Beyond the data — what it's actually like to spend four years in Cincinnati.
UC's Uptown campus sits in the Clifton neighborhood, a couple of miles north of downtown Cincinnati, a metro of roughly 2.3 million people and headquarters city for Procter & Gamble, Kroger and Fifth Third Bank. The campus itself has become a stop on architecture tours — Frank Gehry, Peter Eisenman and Michael Graves buildings sit inside a few blocks of each other — while downtown, the riverfront and Over-the-Rhine's restaurant scene are a short bus or streetcar ride away.
Notable Alumni
William Howard Taft
27th president of the United States and 10th chief justice of the Supreme Court — the only person to hold both offices; graduated from Cincinnati Law School (now UC College of Law) in 1880
Class of 1880
Charles G. Dawes
30th vice president of the United States and winner of the 1925 Nobel Peace Prize; law graduate of the University of Cincinnati
Joseph B. Strauss
Chief engineer of the Golden Gate Bridge; graduated UC in 1892 with a degree in civil engineering
Class of 1892
Kathleen Battle
Grammy Award-winning operatic soprano and longtime Metropolitan Opera star; studied voice on scholarship at UC's College-Conservatory of Music and earned a master's degree in music education there
Alumni selected for name recognition and range of fields. Not from the Common Data Set.
The City
Major city
Cincinnati, OH
Best For
Traditions
Co-op
Herman Schneider, dean of UC's College of Engineering, invented cooperative education here in 1906 — alternating semesters of paid work with semesters of class. It's still required in engineering, architecture, design and several other programs, and asking a classmate what rotation they're on is as ordinary as asking their major.
Nippert Stadium
Bearcat football has played on this site since 1901 and in the current concrete stadium since 1915, making it one of the oldest stadiums still hosting major college football. Students walk past it daily on their way to class, not just on game days.
Oktoberfest Zinzinnati
The city's downtown Oktoberfest, first held in 1976, draws upward of 800,000 people over a long weekend each September and is billed as the largest Oktoberfest in the country. It's close enough to campus that it functions as an unofficial back-to-school tradition for a lot of Bearcats.
Weekend Escapes
Within driving distance from Cincinnati
Hocking Hills, Ohio
1 hour 45 minutesOhio's best-known hiking region — waterfalls, gorges and cabins — and the default fall-weekend trip for a lot of UC students.
Louisville, Kentucky
1 hour 30 minutesBourbon distilleries, the Kentucky Derby Museum and a riverfront downtown, close enough for a day trip.
Nashville, Tennessee
4 hours 30 minutesThe standard bigger-city weekend trip out of Cincinnati, reachable by car without a flight.
Getting There & Game Days
Nearest airport
Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International (CVG)
20 minutes from campus
For international flights: Chicago O'Hare International Airport (ORD) — about 4 hours 15 minutes by car, or a short connecting flight from cvg.
Pro sports nearby
- Cincinnati Reds MLB
- Cincinnati Bengals NFL
- FC Cincinnati MLS
Career Proximity
Cincinnati is a genuine corporate headquarters city, and UC's co-op program runs students through its employers on a paid, credit-bearing rotation rather than leaving the connection to a summer internship search.
Top Industries Nearby
Major Employers
- Procter & Gamble
- Kroger
- Fifth Third Bank
- Cincinnati Children's Hospital
- GE Aviation
- Great American Insurance Group
Downtown Cincinnati, about 15 minutes by car or bus
Who Thrives Here
Cincinnati admits 88% of applicants and enrolls 34,447 undergraduates on an Uptown campus that has become a genuine architecture destination — buildings by Frank Gehry and Peter Eisenman sit a short walk from Nippert Stadium, one of the oldest football stadiums still in use in the country, and from the Engineering Research Center designed by UC architecture alumnus Michael Graves. The University of Cincinnati invented the cooperative-education model, and it still defines the place: engineering, architecture and design students alternate paid work-term semesters with classes, so a four-year degree is the exception rather than the rule here — only 43% of students finish in four years, against 75% within six. Greek life is small (about 7% of men, 9% of women), so the co-op rotation, not a campus row, sets the social rhythm. Aid covers well under half of demonstrated need on average, which means the co-op paychecks are doing real work toward the bill, not just the résumé.