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College Ledger

unitid 214777 · University Park, PA · public 4-year · city (small)

Pennsylvania State University-Main Campus

Public university in Pennsylvania, US

founded
1855
enrollment 2023
52,693
predominant degree
Bachelor's
Campus of Pennsylvania State University-Main Campus

George Chriss · CC BY 2.5

The Pennsylvania State University is a public state-related land-grant research university with campuses and facilities throughout Pennsylvania, United States. Founded in 1855 as the Farmers' High School of Pennsylvania, Penn State was named the state's first land-grant university eight years later. Its primary campus, known as Penn State University Park, is located in State College and College Township in Centre County. wikipedia rev 1363538066 ↗

scorecard 2026-06 · percentiles within public 4-years

The record

admission rate

61%

18th pctl among public 4-years

undergraduates

42,284

99th pctl among public 4-years

Pell share

14%

undergrads on Pell grants

5th pctl among public 4-years

completion

86%

finish within 150% time

97th pctl among public 4-years

sticker cost / yr

$39,694

99th pctl among public 4-years

avg net price / yr

$32,875

after aid, aided students

100th pctl among public 4-years

median earnings, 10 yr

$63,435

after entry, Title IV students

82nd pctl among public 4-years

median grad debt

$25,000

91st pctl among public 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 $19,845 per year after aid.

Dashed hollow marks are privacy-suppressed brackets — not zero. Band: middle half of public 4-years (all incomes).

Who enrolls, by family income

  • 0-30k
    20%
  • 30-48k
    12%
  • 48-75k
    15%
  • 75-110k
    18%
  • 110k+
    35%
Median family income
$61,924
First-generation students
29%
In-state tuition & fees
$20,644

earnings · debt · programs

Outcomes

Median earnings after entry, working grads with federal aid

Ten years out, the median graduate earns 2.5× the median graduate debt.

Earnings cover federally aided (Title IV) students only.

What programs pay — top fields of study

programgradsearn 5 yrdebt
Finance and Financial Management Services.577$105,563$25,375
Information Science/Studies.489$92,982$26,000
Computer and Information Sciences, General.458$116,013$26,000
Psychology, General.446$51,142$27,000
Mechanical Engineering.374$90,200$27,000
Marketing.361$82,708$25,000
Economics.356$87,517$25,000
Public Relations, Advertising, and Applied Communication.349$77,241$24,693
Biological and Biomedical Sciences, Other.341$80,065$26,000
Computer/Information Technology Administration and Management.276$108,251$26,917
Teacher Education and Professional Development, Specific Levels and Methods.274$53,634$26,263
Biology, General.242$68,771$26,000

— 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 · 5,869 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 (1,728) · basketball player (546) · American football player (518) · university teacher (436) · politician (211) · writer (112) · academic (96) · mathematician (95)

Nobel laureates who studied here

  • Paul Berg Chemistry 1980

The portrait wall

Sized by nothing, ordered by Wikipedia footprint (language editions).

Also recorded: Benjamin Bloom.

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 1363538066), CC BY-SA 4.0.