Guide
What Big Ten membership means here
This page lists schools whose IPEDS football conference is the Big Ten Conference. It is a football roster. A Big Ten member that does not field football would not appear, and a school that plays other Big Ten sports only is not the rule this file can see. The table is alphabetical.
The conference now includes West Coast football members. UCLA, USC, Oregon, and Washington are in the football file as Big Ten, so they are on this page. That is the file, not a map of the Midwest. The figures below cover the roster as it stands.
- Schools
- 18
- States
- 14
- Median admit rate
- 54%
- All schools report a rate
- Median earnings
- $73,108
- 10 years after entry
The football conference string
IPEDS records the football conference by name. This page keeps rows whose conference is Big Ten Conference. It does not keep a hand list of traditional members and then ignore the file. When the conference adds a football member, this page follows.
UCLA, USC, Oregon, and the University of Washington in Seattle are the West Coast cases readers ask about. Their football conference field is the Big Ten. They belong here for that reason. Their state is still California, Oregon, or Washington, and the state column shows it.
Who the football file leaves out
Notre Dame is not in the Big Ten football file. A rivalry game does not set the conference field. A school with no football team is off this page even if fans still associate it with the conference.
Other conferences have their own pages. An ACC, SEC, or Big 12 football school is not listed here. A Division I school with no football team is on the Division I colleges page instead.
How to read a conference roster
Use this page to see the football members and their Scorecard profiles. Do not use it as a standings table. Wins, coaches, and bowl results are not in the college file, and this site does not invent them.
Public flagships and large private universities can share a conference and not share a price. In-state sticker price is the public figure. Read the price split below, then open a campus for net price.
Geography changed. The rule did not.
For a long time the Big Ten name described a Midwestern group. The name survived a larger, wider conference. This page uses the name the football file uses today. It does not freeze the roster at an older map.
The same method builds the ACC, Big 12, and SEC pages. Comparing those pages is fair because the rule is the same. Comparing them to a basketball conference this file does not record is not.
Where the schools are
These schools sit in 14 states. The largest groups are California (2), Illinois (2), Indiana (2), Michigan (2), and Iowa (1). The rest of the roll is spread across the other states in the table.
Who runs them
By reported control, 16 are public and 2 are private nonprofit. A blank control stays out of that split.
Predominant degree is the credential the campus awards most often. On this list it is a bachelor's degree at 18 schools. A campus can still award other credentials.
How large they are
The largest undergraduate enrollments on this list are Ohio State University-Main Campus in Columbus, Ohio, with 45,638 undergraduates, Purdue University-Main Campus in West Lafayette, Indiana, with 44,503 undergraduates, and Pennsylvania State University-Main Campus in University Park, Pennsylvania, with 42,284 undergraduates. Enrollment is the undergraduate figure. It is not a ranking, and it leaves out graduate students.
Admission
18 of 18 schools report an admission rate. The median of those rates is 54%. Schools with no reported rate stay out of the median. A missing rate is not an open door, and it is not a closed one.
The lowest reported admission rates on this list are Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, at 8%, University of California-Los Angeles in Los Angeles, California, at 9%, and University of Southern California in Los Angeles, California, at 10%. A lower rate is harder entry. It is not a score for the school.
The highest reported admission rates on this list are University of Oregon in Eugene, Oregon, at 88%, University of Nebraska-Lincoln in Lincoln, Nebraska, at 87%, and Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan, at 85%.
What they charge
Among 16 public colleges that report an in-state sticker price, the median is $14,224. Among 2 private colleges that report a sticker price, the median is $70,210.
Sticker price is not net price. Grants, waivers, and a service commitment can move the bill by a wide margin. Open a school for the net-price figures.
Earnings and graduation
Among 18 schools that report earnings, the median of those school-level medians is $73,108. The clock starts at entry, not at graduation. The highest reported medians on this list are University of Southern California in Los Angeles, California, at $92,498, Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, at $89,363, and University of Michigan-Ann Arbor in Ann Arbor, Michigan, at $83,648.
Among 18 schools that report a graduation rate, the median rate is 85%. A blank rate is left out. It is not treated as zero.
Also on other lists
Some of these schools also meet the rule for another list on this site. The overlap is a second flag or a second classification. It is not a second ranking.
All of them are also on R1 research universities. 1 is also on Hispanic-serving institutions.
How these figures work
Admission rate, enrollment, sticker price, earnings, and graduation rate all come from the College Scorecard. Earnings are the median 10 years after a student entered the school. Tuition for a public college is the in-state sticker price. Tuition for a private college is the published sticker price. None of these is net price after aid.
A blank field stays blank. This page does not turn a blank admission rate into an open door, a blank fee into a free application, or a blank earnings figure into zero. The table above is membership under the rule in this guide. Sort order is not a quality ranking.