What You'll Actually Pay
Price after grants
$12,674 to $21,646 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: $25,786 a year in-state. Average need-based aid package: $9,091.Aid and debt
$22,729
average debt at graduation
2,115
students got merit aid
about 10% of undergraduates
$2,923
average merit award
Not reported by this school: share receiving need-based grants.
Getting In
Key dates
Test scores
Nevada does not use SAT or ACT scores in admission decisions. The ranges below describe only the students who submitted a score anyway — they were not part of the decision.
SAT, middle 50% of those who submitted: 1060–1280 · 16% of the class submitted
ACT, middle 50% of those who submitted: 18–25 · 61% of the class submitted
What they value
- Very important
- Course rigor (AP/IB)
- GPA
- Not considered
- Class rank
- SAT/ACT scores
- Personal essay
- Recommendations
- Extracurriculars
- Special talent
- Character
- First-gen status
- Legacy status
- Where you're from
- In-state residency
- Volunteer work
- Work experience
- Demonstrated interest
What this means for you
Nevada 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.
Nevada 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)
Nevada just showed you what it values in an application. Use that to write a Why-Nevada essay that's actually about you — not a template.
Get sourced starting points for your essayStudent Life
35.3% of Nevada classes have fewer than 20 students.
35.3%
under 20 students
43.2%
20 to 49
21.5%
50 or more
Every class section counts, labs and seminars included; first-year courses tend to be larger. Nevada CDS 2025–26, I-3.
18:1
student:faculty ratio
Campus life
Campus life details aren't reported by this school.
Who attends
- White46.3%
- Hispanic26.6%
- Multiracial9.8%
- Asian8%
- Black4.2%
- Unknown / other2.8%
Enrolled undergraduates; international students are counted separately and not included. Nevada CDS 2025–26, B2.
Popular majors
Will They Graduate?
40.7% of Nevada students graduate in 4 years.
40.7%
finish in 4 years
Entered fall 2019
61%
finish in 6 years
Entered fall 2019
79.7%
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
52% finish in 6 years, against 61% of all students.
A 9-point gap: Pell Grant students finish less often than students overall.
Retention from College Scorecard (2024) — not reported in Nevada's 2025–26 Common Data Set.
City & Culture
Beyond the data — what it's actually like to spend four years in Reno.
Reno is a real mid-size city — not a campus bubble — with a genuine Midtown arts and restaurant district, a historic casino corridor, and enough edge to feel like an actual place rather than a college-town simulation.
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Students who like being embedded in a community rather than sealed off from one tend to thrive here; the honest tradeoff is that you're navigating city life rather than a contained campus world. The biggest draw: Lake Tahoe is 45 minutes away, making powder days and beach days equally realistic on a student schedule.
The City
Mid-size city
Reno, NV
Best For
Notable alumni
Notable Alumni
Nate Burleson
After playing 11 seasons in the NFL for four franchises, he became a co-host of CBS Mornings and The NFL Today, building a second career in television that reaches a far larger audience than football ever did.
Brian Sandoval
Served as Nevada's first Hispanic governor from 2011 to 2019, overhauling the state's education funding system, before returning to UNR to serve as the university's president.
Frankie Sue Del Papa
Won election in 1990 as Nevada's first female Attorney General and served three consecutive terms, earning a national reputation for consumer protection and environmental enforcement.
Robert Laxalt
Wrote Sweet Promised Land, a 1957 memoir about his Basque immigrant father that became a Nevada literary classic and helped establish the University of Nevada Press as one of the West's most respected regional publishers.
Warren Lerude
Shared the 1977 Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Writing for his work at the Nevada State Journal, becoming one of the very few Nevada journalists ever to earn the profession's highest honor.
Eva Adams
Appointed by President Kennedy in 1961, she became the first woman to serve as Director of the United States Mint, overseeing the production of billions of coins during one of the agency's most expansive periods.
Alumni selected for name recognition and range of fields. Not from the Common Data Set.
Traditions
Traditions
Mackay Day
Each spring, students from UNR's different colleges spend a week competing against each other in events ranging from tug-of-war to mining contests, all in honor of silver-mining magnate John Mackay, whose fortune helped build the university in its early decades. The inter-college bracket carries a March Madness energy — friendly enough to laugh off, but serious enough that departments actually show up ready to compete.
The Fremont Cannon
The winner of the annual Nevada-UNLV rivalry football game earns custody of the Fremont Cannon — a massive trophy cannon that gets painted in the winning team's colors and lives on the winning campus until the following season's rematch. In Reno, keeping the cannon home is taken seriously enough that the game functions as a de facto second homecoming, with the campus atmosphere shifting noticeably in the week leading up to kickoff.
Nevada Day Parade
Nevada's statehood day falls on October 31, and Reno marks it with one of the state's biggest parades — floats, marching bands, and politicians moving down Virginia Street while students line the sidewalks. Halloween weekend doubling as a statehood celebration is a genuinely Reno thing, and it pulls the university community out into the city in a way that feels like belonging rather than tourism.
Weekend escapes from Reno
Weekend Escapes
Within driving distance from Reno
Lake Tahoe, CA/NV
45 minutesOne of the most visually stunning lakes in North America is practically on campus — ski resorts line the western shore all winter, and crystal-clear beaches take over from Memorial Day through September, making it genuinely usable in every season.
Sacramento, CA
2 hoursCalifornia's state capital punches well above its size — Old Sacramento's historic waterfront, a nationally recognized farm-to-fork restaurant scene, and the Golden 1 Center for concerts and Kings games all make for a full city weekend without the Bay Area price tag.
San Francisco, CA
3.5 hoursThe Bay Area delivers everything a major American city can offer — the Golden Gate, world-class museums, a dozen distinct neighborhoods worth exploring, and a food culture that makes the drive worth it a few times a year.
Getting there and game days
Getting There & Game Days
Nearest airport
Reno-Tahoe International Airport (RNO)
10 minutes from campus
For international flights: San Francisco International Airport (SFO) — about 3 hours 30 minutes by car.
Pro sports nearby
- Reno Aces (Triple-A, Diamondbacks) MiLB10 minutes away
- Golden State Warriors NBAAbout 4 hours away
- Las Vegas Raiders NFLAbout 7 hours away
Internships and jobs nearby
Career Proximity
Reno's booming tech corridor along I-80 has attracted Tesla, Apple, and Switch, turning what was once a gaming-only job market into one of the more diverse internship landscapes in the Mountain West.
Top Industries Nearby
Major Employers
- Tesla Gigafactory Nevada
- Switch Data Centers
- Renown Health
- International Game Technology (IGT)
- Apple (data center operations)
Sacramento, CA — approximately 2 hours west via I-80, with the Bay Area tech ecosystem another 90 minutes beyond that
Who thrives here
Who Thrives Here
Nevada is the state's flagship and admits 83.1% of applicants without looking at an SAT or ACT: C8A is answered No. In-state tuition and fees of $10,298 are among the gentler numbers a family will see, against $28,930 from out of state, and graduates who borrow leave owing $22,729 with aid meeting 56.0% of need. The completion picture is where the honesty is required: 61.0% finish within six years and 40.7% in four, so a student should plan for the extra time and price it. Classes hold up better than the size suggests — 35.3% of sections have fewer than 20 students at 18 per faculty member, across 20,204 undergraduates. Nevada reported no retention figure in its own CDS, so the 79.7% shown here is a federal estimate rather than the school's own filing.