unitid 243780 · West Lafayette, IN · public 4-year · city (small)
Purdue University-Main Campus
Public university in West Lafayette and Indianapolis, Indiana, US
- founded
- 1869
- enrollment 2023
- 56,210
- predominant degree
- Bachelor's
- website
- purdue.edu
Purdue University is a public land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, United States, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system, which also includes Purdue University in Indianapolis as an ongoing expansion of the West Lafayette campus. The university was founded in 1869 after Lafayette businessman John Purdue donated land and money to establish a college of science, technology, and agriculture; the first classes were held on September 16, 1874. wikipedia rev 1361978799 ↗
scorecard 2026-06 · percentiles within public 4-years
The record
admission rate
50%
10th pctl among public 4-years
undergraduates
44,503
99th pctl among public 4-years
Pell share
13%
undergrads on Pell grants
4th pctl among public 4-years
completion
83%
finish within 150% time
96th pctl among public 4-years
sticker cost / yr
$24,591
62nd pctl among public 4-years
avg net price / yr
$14,600
after aid, aided students
63rd pctl among public 4-years
median earnings, 10 yr
$72,424
after entry, Title IV students
92nd pctl among public 4-years
median grad debt
$19,500
49th 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 $5,098 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
- 0-30k15%
- 30-48k13%
- 48-75k15%
- 75-110k18%
- 110k+39%
- Median family income
- $81,834
- First-generation students
- 19%
- In-state tuition & fees
- $9,992
earnings · debt · programs
Outcomes
Median earnings after entry, working grads with federal aid
Ten years out, the median graduate earns 3.7× 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 Science. | 560 | $149,545 | $19,375 |
| Business Administration, Management and Operations. | 509 | $76,560 | $19,500 |
| Mechanical Engineering. | 478 | $97,551 | $19,937 |
| Management Sciences and Quantitative Methods. | 426 | — | — |
| Computer Engineering. | 319 | $118,081 | $23,000 |
| Research and Experimental Psychology. | 318 | $49,575 | $19,500 |
| Aerospace, Aeronautical, and Astronautical/Space Engineering. | 314 | $97,947 | $21,500 |
| Biology, General. | 290 | $77,863 | $20,380 |
| Industrial Engineering. | 269 | $100,438 | $19,427 |
| Mechanical Engineering Related Technologies/Technicians. | 265 | $81,374 | $20,500 |
| Finance and Financial Management Services. | 224 | $78,926 | $22,335 |
| Mechanical Engineering. | 219 | $127,247 | — |
— 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 · 6,451 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 (2,133) · university teacher (619) · basketball player (576) · American football player (182) · mathematician (174) · politician (147) · engineer (132) · writer (112)
Nobel laureates who studied here
- Edward Mills Purcell Physics 1952
- Ben Roy Mottelson Physics 1975
- Akira Suzuki Chemistry 2010
The portrait wall
Sized by nothing, ordered by Wikipedia footprint (language editions).
Neil Armstrong
218 wikis · Public domain
Edward Mills Purcell
76 wikis · Public domain
Ben Roy Mottelson
70 wikis · CC BY 3.0
Akira Suzuki
67 wikis · CC BY 4.0
Ward Cunningham
63 wikis · CC BY-SA 4.0
Eugene Cernan
59 wikis · Public domain
Gus Grissom
54 wikis · Public domain
Roger Bruce Chaffee
46 wikis · Public domain
George Peppard
44 wikis · Public domain
Ian Murdock
43 wikis · CC BY-SA 2.0
Herman Cain
43 wikis · CC BY-SA 3.0
Chintamani Nagesa Ramachandra Rao
40 wikis · CC BY 3.0
Essam Sharaf
38 wikis · Public domain
Mary Ellen Weber
37 wikis · Public domain
John Wooden
36 wikis · Public domain
nearest neighbors in sector
Compare with peers
- University of Wisconsin-Madison →
- Auburn University →
- Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University →
- Texas A&M University-College Station →
- University of Washington-Seattle Campus →
- North Carolina State University at Raleigh →
- University of Maryland-College Park →
- Pennsylvania State University-Main Campus →
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 1361978799), CC BY-SA 4.0.