College Azimuth

Research brief & institution hub

University of Illinois Chicago

ILLarge public institution · Overall rank #17 nationally

Data snapshot Updated

UIC’s costs, programs and graduate outcomes

Who it’s a good fit for

University of Illinois Chicago is a strong fit for students drawn to business, engineering, health sciences, and applied professional fields who want a large public research university experience in Chicago, IL.

Graduates in the covered federally aided cohort who were working and not enrolled report median earnings of $72,839 four years after completion, and Azimuth’s current value-added measure places reported earnings $20,143 above expectation.

The access and aid structure includes institutional scholarships and student employment.

Fit depends on students’ interests aligning with the program portfolio, including business and adjacent applied fields, and on the borrowing they can manage; the reported median federal student debt among borrowing completers is $16,704 in the pooled fiscal 2020 and 2021 cohorts.

UIC at a glance

Admissions and outcomes

Admission rate[1]
77.3%
Six-year completion[2]
61.6%
Four-year earnings[3]
$72,839

Cost and family borrowing

Average annual net price · $48–75K family income[6]
$10,921
Median student debt[4]
$16,704
Median Parent PLUS debt[7]
$24,323

UIC rankings: how Azimuth assesses value[5]

Start with the question behind each measure. Affordability helps you examine costs and borrowing; return brings earnings into the comparison.

Access and mobility add questions about who a university serves and the outcomes reported for students from different backgrounds. Reading those measures together gives you more to work with than an overall position alone.

For UIC, use the sections below to connect that comparison to the program you want to study, the price after aid and the outcomes reported for the relevant student group. University-wide earnings and program earnings describe different groups.

A university-wide result can help you begin a comparison, while the program records make it more specific to your choice.

Azimuth’s value-added earnings measure compares reported earnings with a model’s expectation. A result above that expectation describes a difference from the model; it does not establish how much the university caused earnings to rise.

Read a displayed rank or percentile alongside its measure, comparison group and source period, then use the underlying figures to decide what matters for your situation.

How value-added outcomes are assessed · How to interpret program rankings

UIC rankings in context
GeographyRank
National#17
Illinois#1
Midwest#2

Azimuth overall value rankings within each geographic comparison group.

National pillar percentiles

Economic mobility
National percentile: 98
Access & reach
National percentile: 95
Affordability
National percentile: 91
Return on investment
National percentile: 87

Top-ranked majors

  1. Mathematics and Computer Science#4
  2. Teacher Education and Professional Development, Specific Levels and Methods#6
  3. Teacher Education and Professional Development, Specific Subject Areas#12

This school’s three highest-ranked programs nationally. Each rank compares bachelor’s programs in the same field; field sizes differ.

Explore major rankings

01 / UIC briefing

UIC cost & financial aid[6][7]

The published cost of attendance at University of Illinois Chicago is $27,521. For families earning under $30,000, the average net price is $7,529; for families earning $48,001–$75,000, it is $10,921; and for families earning over $110,000, it is $25,047.

The spread between the lowest and highest bands is $17,518. Azimuth ranks University of Illinois Chicago #130 for affordability among nonprofit four-year institutions.

Aid covers about 60% of the published cost for the average aid recipient, an average offset of $16,547. The across all aid recipients is $10,974.

Among comparable institutions (same type and size), the peer median net price is $15,634, which puts UIC below by $4,660. The median federal student loan debt at completion is $16,704, with about 62.2% of federal aid recipients borrowing.

The peer median debt for comparable institutions (same type and size) is $20,076, leaving UIC below by $3,372. Median Parent PLUS borrowing is $24,323.

If repaid over ten years, the estimated monthly payment on the median federal debt is $190.

Your family income

Choose a household income range to see estimated net price.

Reported average annual net price · $48–75K$10,921

After grants and scholarships. Your aid offer may differ.

Averages within each income band; individual aid packages vary.

Borrowing and repayment at UIC

Borrowers who complete a degree at University of Illinois Chicago leave with a median of $16,704 in federal student loans. That median is $3,372 below the $20,076 median for comparable institutions (same type and size).

62.2% of federal aid recipients take federal loans. Parents who borrow through the Parent PLUS program hold a separate median of $24,323.

In its 2025-26 Common Data Set, the university reported that 37% of bachelor's graduates had borrowed from any source, with an average cumulative debt of $21,696 per borrower. Of those graduates, 37% held federal loans averaging $16,266. A smaller group, 6%, held private loans averaging $37,462.

Graduates of the University of Illinois Chicago earn about $20,143 more than the model expects for similar students, an outcome in the 96th percentile among nonprofit four-year institutions. The median earnings four years after completion reach $72,839, which sits in the 80th percentile nationally.

Earnings scenarios anchored on UIC's program mix show a typical outcome of $72,839, with a downside scenario of $51,262 and an upside scenario reaching $96,560. Borrowers who complete a degree carry a median federal student debt of $16,704, which is below the $20,076 median for comparable institutions (same type and size).

If repaid over ten years, that debt yields an estimated monthly payment of $190.

Median Parent PLUS borrowing, a separate parent-borrower population, is $24,323. The estimated monthly student payment if repaid over ten years is $190.

How Financial GPS measures payment burden · The four risk-and-reward zones

Financial GPS

What does repayment look like?

Institution median student debt
$16,704
Institution Parent PLUS debt
$24,323

Federal loans only; private or institutional loans aren’t included.

Estimated student payment · monthly
$190/mo
Estimated Parent PLUS payment · monthly
$309/mo

Payments use school-wide median balances, not a specific major’s.

Payment assumptions

Payments are 10-year standard payments on the median balance, before loan fees, used as a yardstick. Rates for newly issued loans may differ, and loans made after July 1, 2026 can repay over a longer term; existing loans keep their original fixed rates.

Explore your own numbers in Financial GPS
Read the full cost & aid brief

02 / UIC briefing

UIC career outcomes & earnings[3][8][9]

University of Illinois Chicago reports median earnings of $72,839 four years after completion. That institution-wide figure is a starting point; results for particular fields can differ.

Read earnings alongside retention and completion. Earnings among completers do not include every student who entered the institution, while the lower and higher planning estimates describe modeled mixes of program outcomes rather than observed salary percentiles.

What explains value-added earnings?
Program & institutional factors The part attributed to observed institutional characteristics.
+$11,613
Unexplained remainder What remains after the model’s observed factors.
+$8,530
Total modeled value added The modeled difference from expected earnings.
+$20,143

These are statistical model components, not proven causal effects; the remainder is not a direct measure of teaching quality.

Read the full outcomes brief

03 / UIC briefing

UIC acceptance rate & admissions[1][10][11]

UIC’s 2025–26 CDS identifies course rigor, class rank and academic GPA as very important in general first-year admissions, with the application essay marked important. Those categories describe the university’s stated review criteria; they do not give numerical weights or an admission formula.

Among Fall 2025 entering students who submitted each test, the middle half scored 1,030–1,300 on the SAT and 24–31 on the ACT. SAT scores were reported for 47% of the entering class and ACT scores for 4%.

These profiles describe enrolled submitters, so they should be read separately from current application requirements and testing policy.

UIC 2025–26 Common Data Set · C7/C9: admissions

SAT: reported composite scores
Admission rate
77.3%
25th percentile
1030
Median
1170
75th percentile
1300

CDS 2025-26 · enrolled first-year score submitters. This range is not an admission cutoff.

Read the full admissions brief

04 / UIC briefing

What are the largest majors at UIC?[12]

The largest program records at University of Illinois Chicago, by reported degrees awarded, are: Biology, General (426 awards); Psychology, General (399 awards); Computer Science (328 awards); Registered Nursing, Nursing Administration, Nursing Research and Clinical Nursing (296 awards); Finance and Financial Management Services (274 awards). These counts describe degree output in the source reporting period, not current enrollment or unique people.

Among those larger programs, reported median earnings four years after completion include Biology, General at $59,119; Psychology, General at $52,736; Computer Science at $120,470. Program size and earnings answer different questions; the largest program need not have the highest earnings.

Keep individual program records separate from broader degree categories and from records for other reporting periods. Those views can describe different parts of the university’s academic mix.

UIC 2025–26 Common Data Set · J: degree mix

Four-year earnings · six largest reported fields
Biology, General 426 degrees awarded
$59,119
Psychology, General 399 degrees awarded
$52,736
Computer Science 328 degrees awarded
$120,470
Registered Nursing, Nursing Administration, Nursing Research and Clinical Nursing 296 degrees awarded
$87,037
Finance and Financial Management Services 274 degrees awarded
$83,218
Criminal Justice and Corrections 223 degrees awarded
$59,295

Fields selected by reported completions. Counts describe credentials awarded, not unique students or the earnings sample. Bars show median four-year earnings.

Read the full majors brief

05 / UIC briefing

How does UIC serve students from different backgrounds?

UIC reports 24,260 undergraduates in Fall 2025, including 23,991 pursuing degrees. Among degree-seeking undergraduates, 8,838 are reported as Hispanic/Latino, 5,294 as White, non-Hispanic and 4,881 as Asian, non-Hispanic.

These counts describe who was enrolled at that reporting date; they are not a measure of what students later earned.

Completion provides a separate outcome to examine. In the CDS Fall 2019 first-time, full-time bachelor’s cohort, 61.48% completed within six years, compared with 57.76% in the Pell-recipient subgroup of that same cohort.

Those figures add context about progress through college without establishing that UIC caused a particular student’s economic mobility.

UIC 2025–26 Common Data Set · B: enrollment and completion

06 / UIC briefing

What colleges are similar to UIC?[15]

The comparisons for University of Illinois Chicago cover higher reported admission rates, similar admissions profiles, lower reported cost with similar earnings and options in the same state or region. The similar-schools brief keeps these questions in separate groups, with related institutional profiles shown as another comparison.

Each group has its own candidate list and ordering. A high position within one group is not a rank against all the schools in the other groups, and a school can appear more than once for different reasons. Check the source definition and earnings period for the comparison you choose.

A shortlist for different decisions

Choose a row to compare the figures with UIC.

Admissions peerDePaul University75.9% admitted
Comparison with UIC
MeasureUICDePaul University
Peer earnings · 4 years$72,839$73,466+$627 vs UIC
Average annual net price$10,974$30,902+$19,928 vs UIC · higher cost
Admission rate77.3%75.9%
Explore DePaul University →
Higher-admission alternativeBenedictine University95.2% admitted
Comparison with UIC
MeasureUICBenedictine University
Peer earnings · 4 years$72,839$72,460-$379 vs UIC
Average annual net price$10,974$22,313+$11,339 vs UIC · higher cost
Admission rate77.3%95.2%
Explore Benedictine University →
Nearby alternativeLoyola University ChicagoNearby option · IL
Comparison with UIC
MeasureUICLoyola University Chicago
Peer earnings · 4 years$72,839$73,865+$1,026 vs UIC
Average annual net price$10,974$36,079+$25,105 vs UIC · higher cost
Admission rate77.3%81.6%
Explore Loyola University Chicago →
Lower-cost alternativePurdue University Northwest$6,079 average net price
Comparison with UIC
MeasureUICPurdue University Northwest
Peer earnings · 4 years$72,839$73,337+$498 vs UIC
Average annual net price$10,974$6,079-$4,895 vs UIC · lower cost
Admission rate77.3%72.4%
Explore Purdue University Northwest →
Similar profileUniversity of IowaMatched across several measures
Comparison with UIC
MeasureUICUniversity of Iowa
Peer earnings · 4 years$72,839$69,866-$2,973 vs UIC
Average annual net price$10,974$22,531+$11,557 vs UIC · higher cost
Admission rate77.3%83.6%
Explore University of Iowa →

Each school is the first-ranked match in its category, not a recommendation across every measure. The same college may lead more than one category. Figures use the matching snapshot; earnings reflect the matched four-year cohort. — means unavailable.

Want a fuller side-by-side view?

Compare UIC and Arizona State
Read the full similar schools brief

Data scope & methodology

UIC Common Data Set: admissions, aid and student profile

Structured payloads generated Governed hub narrative Governed spoke corpus

Four-year earnings describe cohorts of completers. Figures for other horizons describe different cohorts and are not joined into a career-growth projection.

Azimuth's overall rank and pillar percentiles come from the school profile. Absolute pillar ranks, city, enrollment and official-site links are shown only when structured data supplies them.

Detailed earnings, cost, admissions and program values come from the endpoint responsible for each measure. Missing values are not replaced with zero. Value-added estimates are model associations, not causal effects.

Figures are refreshed with each data release, at most a quarter apart. The underlying source dates can be earlier than the release.

Explanatory text is AI-assisted drafting checked against those figures; it is not an additional data source.

Analysis and methodology by Daniel Rogers, founder of College Azimuth.

Read the ranking methodology, data definitions and limitations · About College Azimuth

Read the analysis behind value-added earnings and the change to four-year graduate earnings. These articles are published on collegeazimuth.com.

Data notes & source fields

Scorecard field codes identify the underlying measure; Azimuth-derived values are labeled separately. Snapshot dates are not measurement years. Source populations and reporting periods differ across measures. Field definitions are in the U.S. Department of Education · College Scorecard documentation; notes with a different source link it below.

  1. Admission rate. Reported applicants admitted; not a transfer-specific or individual admission probability.

    Source fields: ADM_RATE

  2. Six-year completion. First-time, full-time students completing at the institution within 150% of normal time, typically six years for a bachelor’s degree.

    Source fields: C150_4

  3. Four-year institutional earnings. Median earnings of graduates in the reported cohort who are working and not enrolled, four years after completion.

    Source fields: MD_EARN_WNE_4YR

  4. Median federal student debt. Federal student-loan debt among completers in the reported borrowing cohort. Excludes Parent PLUS and is not total debt across all students.

    Source fields: GRAD_DEBT_MDN

  5. National, regional and state ranks; pillar percentiles; major ranks. Derived scores within the stated eligible comparison set, not raw Scorecard fields. Major ranks compare institutions within a field; their denominators differ.

    Source fields: Azimuth rankings

    College Azimuth · Ranking methodology

  6. Annual net price by family income. Average annual cost after grants and scholarships for the eligible first-time, full-time aid-recipient cohort. Public-school figures reflect in-state tuition. Includes living costs; these are averages, not medians or individual offers.

    Source fields: NPT4_PUB/PRIV; NPT41_PUB/PRIV through NPT45_PUB/PRIV

  7. Parent PLUS debt, payments and GPS illustration. Stored payments use Financial GPS loan and repayment assumptions. The adjustable spectrum applies the published framework to annual student payments divided by earnings minus an expense allowance; its initial allowance is 150% of the federal poverty guideline for one person, for the year the API serves. It is an illustration rather than a school rating. The parent table is the 10-year payment on the median Parent PLUS as a share of household income above 200% of the guideline for a household of three: under 6% Safe, 6–10% Caution, over 10% High pressure. Parent PLUS uses the completer median where available, otherwise the all-borrower median; these describe different borrowing populations.

    Source fields: PLUS_DEBT_ALL_COMP_MD; fallback PLUS_DEBT_ALL_MD; Azimuth Financial GPS calculations

    College Azimuth · Financial GPS methodology

  8. Downside and upside earnings; yellow band. The band spans the modeled lower and higher scenarios. It is not the P25–P75 interval for individual graduates. The median marker is the separately reported institutional median.

    Source fields: Azimuth modeled program-mix scenarios

    College Azimuth · Earnings scenario methodology

  9. Value added and its components. Observed-factor attribution plus the unexplained remainder equals total modeled value added. These are associations, not proven causal effects; the remainder is not a direct measure of teaching quality.

    Source fields: Azimuth statistical model

    College Azimuth · Value-added methodology

  10. SAT score range and reported midpoint. Reported scores of enrolled score-submitters, not admission cutoffs. The midpoint field is not necessarily the middle of the displayed range.

    Source fields: SATVR25 + SATMT25; SATVR75 + SATMT75; SAT_AVG

  11. First-year retention. Retention of the reported full-time cohort at four-year institutions.

    Source fields: RET_FT4

  12. Program earnings, completion counts and major-mix dots. Included bachelor’s programs have at least five reported completions. Counts are aggregated credentials, not unique people or an earnings sample. Major-mix dots group those counts by field of study; excluded programs are not zero activity.

    Source fields: EARN_MDN_4YR; IPEDSCOUNT1; CIPCODE

    College Scorecard · Field-of-study technical documentation

  13. Pell recipients. Share of undergraduates receiving a Pell Grant in the reported academic year.

    Source fields: PCTPELL

  14. Entering students outside the first-time, full-time group. This is not an observed transfer-in rate. It includes part-time entrants and other entering-student attendance patterns.

    Source fields: 1 − PFTFTUG1_EF

  15. Peer earnings and signed differences. Differences are peer minus this school, from the same matching snapshot. A positive earnings difference does not mean the peer is better on every measure.

    Source fields: Azimuth peer model using MD_EARN_WNE_4YR

    College Azimuth · Comparison methodology

How to interpret program rankings