At a Glance
Georgia admits 34.3% 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
27.9%
receive need-based grant aid
$21,660
average debt at graduation
Georgia graduates carry an average of $21,660 in debt.
Merit Aid
1,943
students received merit aid
$2,467
average merit award
Getting In
Georgia admits 34.3% of applicants.
SAT — Middle 50% of those who submitted · 70% of the class submitted
ACT — Middle 50% of those who submitted · 44% of the class submitted
What They Value
Academic
Nonacademic
University of Georgia gives essays less weight than many schools — academics drive most admissions decisions here. Demonstrated interest is Not Considered here — campus visits and emails to admissions won't affect your odds.
Student Life
44% of Georgia 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 Georgia, 44% 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)
17:1
student:faculty ratio
Campus Life
From out of state (freshman class)
20.8%
Live on campus
66%
Men in fraternities
37%
Women in sororities
25%
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."
Georgia's student body is 63.8% white.
Popular Majors
Will They Graduate?
Georgia graduates 74.9% 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.
Georgia graduates 74.9% 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.
Georgia
74.9%
4-yr grad rate
Extra year cost: $27,993*
* 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.
89.1%
Overall 6-yr rate
84.4%
Pell recipient rate
There's a 4.7 point gap between overall and Pell Grant graduation rates. Worth asking the school about support resources.
Freshman Retention
93.6%
93.6% of first-year students return for sophomore year.
City & Culture
Beyond the data — what it's actually like to spend four years in Athens.
Athens is a small city that punches far above its size culturally, and the reason is music: R.E.M., the B-52s and Widespread Panic all started here, and the 40 Watt Club and Georgia Theatre still run most nights of the week. Campus and downtown share a border rather than a shuttle route, so a student walks from a lecture on North Campus into the bars, record shops and restaurants in a few minutes. That closeness is the defining feature of living here — it makes the town feel like an extension of the university, and it means the social centre of gravity sits off campus. Atlanta is about 70 miles down the road when you want a bigger city, and the pace here is otherwise unhurried and distinctly Southern.
Notable Alumni
Charlayne Hunter-Gault
One of the two students who desegregated UGA in January 1961, walking through a mob to register. She finished her journalism degree here, became the first Black writer at The New Yorker, and went on to report for The New York Times, PBS, NPR and CNN, winning two Peabody Awards.
Class of 1963
Dan Amos
Chairman and chief executive of Aflac since 1990, one of the longest-serving CEOs in American business. He studied risk management and insurance here and was president of his graduating class.
Class of 1973
Michael Stipe
Frontman and lyricist of R.E.M. He was an art student here studying photography and painting when he met Peter Buck at a record shop in Athens; they formed the band in 1980 and he left school the same year to tour.
Alton Brown
Creator and host of Good Eats, the show that taught a generation the science behind cooking. He studied drama here in the 1980s but finished a foreign-language credit short; when the requirement was later dropped he was awarded the degree in 2004.
Class of 2004
Kirby Smart
Head football coach at Georgia, who won national championships in 2021 and 2022. He played defensive back here, was first-team All-SEC as a senior, and took his finance degree from the Terry College.
Class of 1998
Alumni selected for name recognition and range of fields. Not from the Common Data Set.
The City
College town
Athens, GA
Best For
Traditions
Ringing the Chapel Bell
After a football win, students walk up North Campus to the 1830s chapel bell and ring it — traditionally until the rope stops moving. Freshmen were once required to do it; now anyone can, and people ring it for exam results and thesis defences too.
The Arch
The wrought-iron arch at the downtown edge of North Campus is the university's emblem, and superstition holds that a student who walks under it before graduating will not graduate. Most students detour around it for four years and walk through it once.
Between the Hedges
Sanford Stadium's field is ringed by English privet hedges planted in 1929, and Georgia home games are played 'between the hedges'. The line has become shorthand for the place itself, not just the stadium.
Uga
The mascot is a specific white English bulldog from a single Savannah family's line, each one numbered in succession. Former Ugas are entombed in marble vaults inside the stadium, and the current one attends home games in an air-conditioned doghouse.
Weekend Escapes
Within driving distance from Athens
Atlanta
1 hour 15 minutesThe nearest big city and the region's job market — museums, concerts, professional sport, and the airport most students fly home from.
Tallulah Gorge State Park
1 hour 15 minutesA 1,000-foot gorge in the north Georgia mountains with a suspension bridge and a permit-limited floor hike — the standard escape for hiking and waterfalls.
Helen and the north Georgia mountains
1 hour 15 minutesA Bavarian-themed mountain town on the Chattahoochee, known for summer tubing on the river and Oktoberfest in the autumn.
Savannah
4 hoursThe long-weekend trip — the historic squares, the coast, and Tybee Island beach beyond it.
Getting There & Game Days
Nearest airport
Athens-Ben Epps Airport (AHN)
15 minutes from campus
For international flights: Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL) — about 1 hour 15 minutes by road.
Pro sports nearby
- Atlanta Braves MLB
- Atlanta Falcons NFL
- Atlanta Hawks NBA
- Atlanta United FC MLS
Career Proximity
Athens itself is a university-and-hospital town, so the serious recruiting happens 70 miles away in Atlanta, and the distance is close enough that students interview on a weekday and are back for class. Atlanta carries one of the densest concentrations of corporate headquarters in the country — Delta, Coca-Cola, Home Depot, UPS and Southern Company all run their businesses from there — which makes finance, consulting, marketing and logistics the well-trodden paths out of the Terry College. Closer to campus, UGA's own research operation, Piedmont Athens Regional and a cluster of animal-health and manufacturing employers supply term-time work.
Top Industries Nearby
Major Employers
- Delta Air Lines
- The Home Depot
- The Coca-Cola Company
- UPS
- Boehringer Ingelheim Animal Health
Atlanta, about 1 hour 15 minutes southwest
Who Thrives Here
UGA is a 767-acre campus that runs straight into downtown Athens, and the two are hard to separate: the music scene that produced R.E.M. and the B-52s starts a few blocks from North Campus rather than a bus ride away. Greek life is an organising force rather than a footnote — 37% of men and 25% of women join — and two-thirds of undergraduates live in university housing, so the campus holds its students rather than scattering them into the town. Academically it runs at flagship scale, a 17-to-1 student-faculty ratio with 44.0% of sections under 20 students, and business or marketing accounts for 30% of the bachelor's degrees conferred, which makes the Terry College the centre of gravity in a way no other single school here is. Two things to weigh honestly. UGA requires an SAT or ACT score, so a student building a test-optional list has to plan for this one differently. And the aid is thinner than the in-state sticker price suggests: UGA meets 77.9% of demonstrated need, 27.9% of undergraduates receive any need-based aid, and borrowers leave owing $21,660 — manageable for a Georgian, a much harder sum to justify from out of state.