unitid 218663 · Columbia, SC · public 4-year · city (midsize)
University of South Carolina-Columbia
Public university in Columbia, South Carolina, US
- founded
- 1801
- enrollment 2023
- 38,804
- predominant degree
- Bachelor's
- website
- sc.edu/
The University of South Carolina is a public research university in Columbia, South Carolina, United States. Founded in 1801 as South Carolina College, it is the flagship of the University of South Carolina System and the largest university in the state by enrollment. Its main campus is on over 359 acres (145 ha) in downtown Columbia, close to the South Carolina State House. The university is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities with Highest Research Activity". It houses the largest collection of Robert Burns and Scottish literature materials outside Scotland and the world's largest Ernest Hemingway collection. wikipedia rev 1362119004 ↗
scorecard 2026-06 · percentiles within public 4-years
The record
admission rate
60%
17th pctl among public 4-years
undergraduates
29,820
94th pctl among public 4-years
Pell share
19%
undergrads on Pell grants
15th pctl among public 4-years
completion
79%
finish within 150% time
94th pctl among public 4-years
sticker cost / yr
$31,638
91st pctl among public 4-years
avg net price / yr
$22,811
after aid, aided students
96th pctl among public 4-years
median earnings, 10 yr
$62,177
after entry, Title IV students
77th pctl among public 4-years
median grad debt
$21,500
68th 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 $12,634 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
- 0-30k19%
- 30-48k12%
- 48-75k14%
- 75-110k16%
- 110k+39%
- Median family income
- $74,190
- First-generation students
- 20%
- In-state tuition & fees
- $12,688
earnings · debt · programs
Outcomes
Median earnings after entry, working grads with federal aid
Ten years out, the median graduate earns 2.9× 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Finance and Financial Management Services. | 597 | $91,441 | $25,000 |
| Public Health. | 435 | $55,090 | $24,958 |
| Research and Experimental Psychology. | 405 | $48,055 | $24,250 |
| Biology, General. | 390 | $60,846 | $24,620 |
| Marketing. | 367 | $77,355 | $23,750 |
| Sports, Kinesiology, and Physical Education/Fitness. | 296 | $63,908 | $25,000 |
| Business Administration, Management and Operations. | 262 | $69,907 | $26,000 |
| Registered Nursing, Nursing Administration, Nursing Research and Clinical Nursing. | 241 | $74,996 | $24,250 |
| Computer and Information Sciences, General. | 239 | $87,069 | $25,250 |
| Criminal Justice and Corrections. | 223 | $49,134 | $25,000 |
| Management Sciences and Quantitative Methods. | 217 | $91,024 | $22,922 |
| Law. | 215 | $95,937 | — |
— 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 · 2,469 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 (610) · basketball player (488) · politician (233) · American football player (155) · lawyer (144) · university teacher (120) · judge (50) · academic (47)
Nobel laureates who studied here
- Robert F. Furchgott Medicine 1998
The portrait wall
Sized by nothing, ordered by Wikipedia footprint (language editions).
Robert F. Furchgott
54 wikis · CC BY 3.0
Lindsey Graham
51 wikis · Public domain
Stanley Donen
45 wikis · CC BY-SA 3.0
Jasper Johns
43 wikis · Public domain
Zig Ziglar
37 wikis · CC BY-SA 3.0
Jo Jorgensen
36 wikis · CC BY 4.0
Mike Colter
34 wikis · CC BY 4.0
Terrence Trammell
28 wikis · GFDL
Susan Abulhawa
28 wikis · CC BY-SA 3.0
Lashinda Demus
27 wikis · CC BY 4.0
Henry McMaster
27 wikis · Public domain
Bianca Belair
26 wikis · Public domain
Aleen Bailey
25 wikis · CC BY-SA 3.0
Natasha Hastings
25 wikis · CC BY-SA 4.0
Also recorded: Tonique Williams-Darling.
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 1362119004), CC BY-SA 4.0.