What You'll Actually Pay
Price after grants
$8,085 to $18,079 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: $27,993 a year in-state. Average need-based aid package: $15,639.Aid and debt
27.9%
receive need-based grants
$21,660
average debt at graduation
1,943
students got merit aid
about 6% of undergraduates
$2,467
average merit award
Getting In
Key dates
Test scores
SAT, middle 50% of those who submitted: 1250–1420 · 70% of the class submitted
ACT, middle 50% of those who submitted: 27–33 · 44% of the class submitted
What they value
- Very important
- Course rigor (AP/IB)
- GPA
- Important
- SAT/ACT scores
- Considered
- Personal essay
- Recommendations
- Extracurriculars
- Special talent
- Character
- First-gen status
- Volunteer work
- Work experience
- Not considered
- Class rank
- Legacy status
- Where you're from
- In-state residency
- Demonstrated interest
What this means for you
Georgia rates course rigor as Very 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.
Georgia 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)
Georgia just showed you what it values in an application. Use that to write a Why-Georgia essay that's actually about you — not a template.
Get sourced starting points for your essayStudent Life
44% of Georgia classes have fewer than 20 students.
44%
under 20 students
43.6%
20 to 49
12.4%
50 or more
Every class section counts, labs and seminars included; first-year courses tend to be larger. Georgia CDS 2025–26, I-3.
17:1
student:faculty ratio
Campus life
20.8%
first-years from out of state
66%
live on campus
37%
of men in fraternities
25%
of women in sororities
Who attends
- White63.8%
- Asian14%
- Hispanic8.7%
- Black6.4%
- Multiracial4.5%
- Unknown / other1.2%
Enrolled undergraduates; international students are counted separately and not included. Georgia CDS 2025–26, B2.
Popular majors
Will They Graduate?
74.9% of Georgia students graduate in 4 years.
74.9%
finish in 4 years
Entered fall 2019
89.1%
finish in 6 years
Entered fall 2019
93.6%
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
84.4% finish in 6 years, against 89.1% of all students.
A 4.7-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 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.
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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.
The City
College town
Athens, GA
Best For
Notable alumni
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.
Traditions
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 from Athens
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 and game days
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
Internships and jobs nearby
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
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 72.4% 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.