What You'll Actually Pay
Price after grants
$13,123 to $21,533 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: $25,557 a year in-state. Average need-based aid package: $12,618.Aid and debt
27.8%
receive need-based grants
$24,197
average debt at graduation
6,003
students got merit aid
about 20% of undergraduates
$7,134
average merit award
Getting In
Key dates
Test scores
SAT, middle 50% of those who submitted: 1120–1320 · 14% of the class submitted
ACT, middle 50% of those who submitted: 22–29 · 36% of the class submitted
What they value
- Very important
- Course rigor (AP/IB)
- GPA
- Considered
- SAT/ACT scores
- Personal essay
- Recommendations
- Extracurriculars
- Special talent
- Character
- First-gen status
- In-state residency
- Volunteer work
- Work experience
- Not considered
- Class rank
- Legacy status
- Where you're from
- Demonstrated interest
What this means for you
Utah rates course rigor as Very Important.
MoreLess
Rigor means AP, IB, and dual enrollment carry real weight — make sure your mix of AP or IB courses is strong.
Utah 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)
Utah just showed you what it values in an application. Use that to write a Why-Utah essay that's actually about you — not a template.
Get sourced starting points for your essayStudent Life
41.5% of Utah classes have fewer than 20 students.
41.5%
under 20 students
36.4%
20 to 49
22.1%
50 or more
Every class section counts, labs and seminars included; first-year courses tend to be larger. Utah CDS 2025–26, I-3.
19:1
student:faculty ratio
Campus life
47%
first-years from out of state
17%
live on campus
8%
of men in fraternities
14%
of women in sororities
Who attends
- White63.2%
- Hispanic13.8%
- Asian6.2%
- Multiracial6.1%
- Unknown / other2.7%
- Black1.2%
Enrolled undergraduates; international students are counted separately and not included. Utah CDS 2025–26, B2.
Popular majors
Will They Graduate?
38.9% of Utah students graduate in 4 years.
38.9%
finish in 4 years
Entered fall 2019
66%
finish in 6 years
Entered fall 2019
86.5%
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
56% finish in 6 years, against 66% of all students.
A 10-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 Salt Lake City.
The campus runs up the foothills on the eastern edge of Salt Lake City, high enough to look back over the whole valley, with the Wasatch range immediately behind it.
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The city below is mid-sized, cheap by western standards and gridded on an unusually generous plan; the mountains are the reason most students choose it.
The City
Mid-size city
Salt Lake City, UT
Best For
Notable alumni
Notable Alumni
John Warnock
Co-founded Adobe and created PostScript and the PDF, which between them made desktop publishing possible. He took his bachelor's, master's and doctorate here, finishing the PhD in 1969.
Class of 1969
Ed Catmull
Co-founded Pixar and won an Academy Award for his work on computer graphics. He completed his doctorate here in 1974 in the department that effectively invented the field.
Class of 1974
Nolan Bushnell
Founded Atari and, with Pong, put video games into ordinary life. He graduated here in electrical engineering in 1968.
Class of 1968
Alan Ashton
Co-founded WordPerfect, the word processor that dominated offices through the 1980s. He earned his doctorate here in 1970 and taught computer science afterwards.
Class of 1970
Alumni selected for name recognition and range of fields. Not from the Common Data Set.
Traditions
Traditions
The Block U
A concrete U on the mountainside above campus, lit white for ordinary days and red after a win — visible from most of the valley.
The MUSS
The student section at Rice-Eccles Stadium, which fills the south end and is the loudest thing on campus on a Saturday.
Mission service and returning students
A large share of students step away from the degree for eighteen months to two years of religious mission service and come back to finish. It is a defining feature of the student body here and the main reason the four-year graduation rate reads lower than at comparable flagships.
The 2002 Winter Olympics legacy
The campus housed the athletes' village and the stadium held the opening ceremony. The facilities and the ski infrastructure around the city are still shaped by it.
Weekend escapes from Salt Lake City
Weekend Escapes
Within driving distance from Salt Lake City
Little and Big Cottonwood Canyons
About 30 minutesFour ski resorts — Alta, Snowbird, Brighton and Solitude — close enough that students ski between classes in winter and hike the same canyons in summer.
Park City
About 40 minutesTwo more resorts, a preserved mining main street, and the Sundance Film Festival every January.
Moab and Arches National Park
About three and a half hoursRed rock, arches and the Colorado River — the standard long-weekend trip.
Zion National Park
About four and a half hoursSandstone canyons and the Narrows, far enough to need a proper weekend.
Getting there and game days
Getting There & Game Days
Nearest airport
Salt Lake City International Airport (SLC)
About 15 minutes from campus
Flies international — you can start a trip abroad from here.
Pro sports nearby
- Utah Jazz NBA
- Real Salt Lake MLS
- Utah Mammoth NHL
- Salt Lake Bees MiLB
Internships and jobs nearby
Career Proximity
Salt Lake City's technology corridor — Silicon Slopes — runs from the campus down the valley, alongside a large medical centre on campus itself.
Top Industries Nearby
Major Employers
- University of Utah Health
- Adobe
- Goldman Sachs
- Qualtrics
- L3Harris
Salt Lake City, with the Silicon Slopes corridor running south through Lehi and Provo
Who thrives here
Who Thrives Here
Utah admits 90.1% of applicants, and the middle half of enrolled first-years scored between 1120 and 1320 on the SAT, so for most applicants this is a safety rather than a reach. That accessibility is the point of a state flagship, and the numbers underneath it deserve to be read carefully. 38.9% of students graduate within four years and 66.0% within six, and 86.5% return for a second year. Part of that is structural: a large share of students here interrupt their degree for eighteen months to two years of religious mission service and return, which stretches the four-year measure in a way it does not at peer flagships. It is still the number a family has to plan and pay for. Money is the other honest caution: aid covers 37.0% of demonstrated need, which is low, and graduates who borrow leave owing about $24,197. The campus is a commuter one — 17.0% live in university housing, Greek life takes in 8.0% of men and 14.0% of women — and 49.3% of undergraduates are Utahns against 47.0% from other states, an unusually even split for a flagship. What a student gets in return is a research university at the foot of the Wasatch, where the ski resorts are half an hour from a lecture hall and the computing department has a lineage most private universities would envy.