unitid 164988 · Boston, MA · private nonprofit 4-year · city (large)
Boston University
Private university in Boston, Massachusetts, US
- founded
- 1869
- enrollment 2023
- 45,548
- predominant degree
- Bachelor's
- website
- bu.edu/
Boston University (BU) is a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. BU was founded in 1839 by a group of Boston Methodists with its original campus in Newbury, Vermont. It was chartered in Boston in 1869. The university is a member of the Association of American Universities and the Boston Consortium for Higher Education. wikipedia rev 1362077536 ↗
scorecard 2026-06 · percentiles within private nonprofit 4-years
The record
admission rate
11%
3rd pctl among private nonprofit 4-years
undergraduates
18,248
99th pctl among private nonprofit 4-years
Pell share
19%
undergrads on Pell grants
19th pctl among private nonprofit 4-years
completion
89%
finish within 150% time
93rd pctl among private nonprofit 4-years
sticker cost / yr
$86,285
97th pctl among private nonprofit 4-years
avg net price / yr
$24,402
after aid, aided students
61st pctl among private nonprofit 4-years
median earnings, 10 yr
$83,238
after entry, Title IV students
93rd pctl among private nonprofit 4-years
median grad debt
$23,250
41st pctl among private nonprofit 4-years
what families actually pay
Cost
Sticker price is a fiction for most families — net price is what aided students pay after grants, by family income.
Average net price by family income, 2023–24 aid cohort
Families earning under $30k paid $9,500 per year after aid.
Dashed hollow marks are privacy-suppressed brackets — not zero. Band: middle half of private nonprofit 4-years (all incomes).
Who enrolls, by family income
- 0-30k19%
- 30-48k11%
- 48-75k14%
- 75-110knot reported
- 110k+not reported
- Median family income
- $81,244
- First-generation students
- 17%
- In-state tuition & fees
- $68,102
earnings · debt · programs
Outcomes
Median earnings after entry, working grads with federal aid
Ten years out, the median graduate earns 3.6× the median graduate debt.
Earnings cover federally aided (Title IV) students only.
What programs pay — top fields of study
| program | grads | earn 5 yr | debt |
|---|---|---|---|
| Business Administration, Management and Operations. | 1,198 | $147,297 | — |
| Business Administration, Management and Operations. | 672 | $102,943 | $25,000 |
| Public Health. | 375 | $81,182 | — |
| Management Sciences and Quantitative Methods. | 370 | $137,068 | — |
| Social Work. | 321 | $71,160 | — |
| Economics. | 307 | $88,959 | $24,500 |
| Computer Science. | 305 | $137,182 | $23,250 |
| Psychology, General. | 305 | $60,374 | $26,000 |
| Public Relations, Advertising, and Applied Communication. | 297 | — | — |
| Finance and Financial Management Services. | 277 | $114,832 | — |
| Information Science/Studies. | 257 | $137,506 | — |
| Law. | 245 | $155,312 | — |
— is privacy suppression at small programs, never zero. Earnings are median, 5 years after completing.
annual scorecard files, 1996–2026
Trajectory
Line breaks are years where the measure wasn't collected — a gap is not a zero.
Admission rate
Price per year
- sticker
- net
Median earnings, 10 yrs after entry
Undergraduates
wikidata · 4,943 people recorded
Memory
Wikidata is not an alumni census: a person appears only when volunteer editors record them. Counts measure the archive's memory - access x achievement x documentation - never placement rates or institutional quality.
Field fingerprint — share of recorded alumni by field
Women among recorded alumni, by birth decade
People without a recorded gender are excluded; decades with fewer than 5 recorded alumni are dropped.
Wikipedia attention
monthly article views since 2015
most recorded occupationsresearcher (1,415) · basketball player (464) · university teacher (333) · politician (288) · writer (266) · journalist (178) · ice hockey player (163) · actor (160)
Nobel laureates who studied here
- Martin Luther King Jr. Peace 1964
- Sheldon Glashow Physics 1979
- Óscar Arias Sánchez Peace 1987
- Daniel C. Tsui Physics 1998
- Drew Weissman Medicine 2023
The portrait wall
Sized by nothing, ordered by Wikipedia footprint (language editions).
Martin Luther King Jr.
245 wikis · Public domain
Julianne Moore
107 wikis · CC BY-SA 2.0
Joan Baez
101 wikis · CC BY-SA 4.0
Psy
97 wikis · CC BY-SA 2.0
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
89 wikis · Public domain
Leonard Nimoy
79 wikis · Public domain
Óscar Arias Sánchez
77 wikis · CC BY-SA 4.0
Geena Davis
76 wikis · CC BY 4.0
Shraddha Kapoor
75 wikis · CC BY 3.0
Sheldon Glashow
71 wikis · Public domain
Jhumpa Lahiri
69 wikis · CC BY 3.0
Marisa Tomei
65 wikis · CC BY 2.0
Daniel C. Tsui
65 wikis · Public domain
Keiko Fujimori
61 wikis · CC BY-SA 4.0
Paul Reubens
60 wikis · CC BY 2.0
nearest neighbors in sector
Compare with peers
built 2026-07-17
Provenance
- U.S. Dept. of Education College Scorecard, 2026-06 release. Earnings cover federally aided (Title IV) students only. Suppressed values are null, never imputed.
- Annual Scorecard files 1996-2026. A null in early years usually means the measure was not yet collected, not zero.
- Coordinates and locale describe the campus address, not where students live.
- Wikidata is not an alumni census: a person appears only when volunteer editors record them. Counts measure the archive's memory - access x achievement x documentation - never placement rates or institutional quality.
- Images are from Wikimedia Commons under free licenses. Render the credit line (artist + license) with every image.
- Lead text from Wikipedia (revision 1362077536), CC BY-SA 4.0.