unitid 240444 · Madison, WI · public 4-year · city (large)
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Public university in Madison, Wisconsin, US
- founded
- 1848
- enrollment 2023
- 53,219
- predominant degree
- Bachelor's
- website
- wisc.edu
- motto
- “Numen Lumen”
The University of Wisconsin–Madison is a public land-grant research university in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. It was founded in 1848 when Wisconsin achieved statehood and is the flagship campus of the University of Wisconsin System. The 933-acre (378 ha) main campus is located on the shores of Lake Mendota; the university also owns and operates a 1,200-acre (486 ha) arboretum 4 miles (6.4 km) south of the main campus. wikipedia rev 1363985351 ↗
scorecard 2026-06 · percentiles within public 4-years
The record
admission rate
45%
9th pctl among public 4-years
undergraduates
36,902
97th pctl among public 4-years
Pell share
16%
undergrads on Pell grants
7th pctl among public 4-years
completion
90%
finish within 150% time
99th pctl among public 4-years
sticker cost / yr
$28,679
84th pctl among public 4-years
avg net price / yr
$17,354
after aid, aided students
80th pctl among public 4-years
median earnings, 10 yr
$73,792
after entry, Title IV students
94th pctl among public 4-years
median grad debt
$20,484
57th 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 $4,200 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
- 0-30k12%
- 30-48k10%
- 48-75k15%
- 75-110knot reported
- 110k+not reported
- Median family income
- $92,428
- First-generation students
- 17%
- In-state tuition & fees
- $11,603
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Computer and Information Sciences, General. | 864 | $118,588 | $22,500 |
| Psychology, General. | 589 | $61,607 | $21,215 |
| Economics. | 587 | $84,958 | $20,750 |
| Finance and Financial Management Services. | 521 | $106,484 | $21,500 |
| Ethnic, Cultural Minority, Gender, and Group Studies. | 502 | — | — |
| Biology, General. | 440 | $68,812 | $20,500 |
| Political Science and Government. | 384 | $68,593 | $22,000 |
| Entrepreneurial and Small Business Operations. | 343 | — | — |
| Data Science. | 323 | — | — |
| Public Health. | 322 | — | — |
| Communication and Media Studies. | 304 | $57,874 | $23,250 |
| Neurobiology and Neurosciences. | 288 | — | $21,750 |
— 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 · 12,621 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 (3,432) · university teacher (1,437) · economist (642) · basketball player (613) · politician (610) · American football player (425) · writer (378) · mathematician (324)
Nobel laureates who studied here
- Joseph Erlanger Medicine 1944
- Herbert Spencer Gasser Medicine 1944
- John Bardeen Physics 1956
- Edward Lawrie Tatum Medicine 1958
- Joshua Lederberg Medicine 1958
- John Bardeen Physics 1972
- Stanford Moore Chemistry 1972
- Howard Temin Medicine 1975
- Saul Bellow Literature 1976
- John Hasbrouck Van Vleck Physics 1977
- Theodore Schultz Economics 1979
- Erwin Neher Medicine 1991
- Paul D. Boyer Chemistry 1997
- Günter Blobel Medicine 1999
- Alan MacDiarmid Chemistry 2000
- Jack Kilby Physics 2000
- Ellen Johnson Sirleaf Peace 2011
- William C. Campbell Medicine 2015
The portrait wall
Sized by nothing, ordered by Wikipedia footprint (language editions).
Frank Lloyd Wright
178 wikis · Public domain
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf
128 wikis · CC BY 2.0
Saul Bellow
120 wikis · Public domain
Dick Cheney
113 wikis · Public domain
John Bardeen
95 wikis · Public domain
Abraham Maslow
95 wikis · Public domain
Charles Lindbergh
89 wikis · Public domain
Jack Kilby
79 wikis · CC BY-SA 4.0
Carl Rogers
76 wikis · CC BY 2.5
Joseph McCarthy
72 wikis · Public domain
John Hasbrouck Van Vleck
68 wikis · CC BY-SA 3.0 nl
Jim Lovell
65 wikis · Public domain
Gena Rowlands
65 wikis · Public domain
Günter Blobel
61 wikis · CC BY-SA 4.0
Joyce Carol Oates
61 wikis · CC BY-SA 4.0
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 1363985351), CC BY-SA 4.0.