Guide
How the Mid-American list is built
This page lists schools whose IPEDS football conference is Mid-American Conference. That is the football roster. The name is not a claim that the schools sit in the middle of the country by any other measure. The table is alphabetical.
The University at Buffalo is on this list. Buffalo is also the New York campus on the flagship page. Those facts can both be true. The University of Massachusetts Amherst is not on this list. Its football conference is a different string.
- Schools
- 12
- States
- 5
- Median admit rate
- 83%
- All schools report a rate
- Median earnings
- $52,207
- 10 years after entry
The Mid-American string
The page matches Mid-American Conference and nothing softer. A Midwest public university in the Big Ten is not added by geography. Ohio State is a Big Ten football school and the Ohio land-grant. Ohio University in Athens is the Mid-American row people sometimes confuse with it.
Football is required for this field. A campus that shares a state system with a member, and does not field this conference's football, stays off. Branch campuses are separate Scorecard rows with their own conference values.
Names that sound close
University of Massachusetts Amherst is coded Independent Northeast Region for football, and the football division is FBS. Independence keeps it off this conference page and on the FBS page. A former tie, if one existed, is not the current string.
The University of Michigan is Big Ten football, not Mid-American. Central Michigan, Eastern Michigan, and Western Michigan are the Michigan names on this page. The state name in the title is not the membership test.
Public campuses, different scales
Most readers use this page to see the football members and then open one campus. Admission rates and earnings vary inside the conference. The list does not average them into a conference grade. There is no conference score on this site.
Buffalo's place on the flagship list does not make the other members flagships. The flagship page keeps one campus per state. This page keeps a football conference. A school can be on one, the other, or neither.
Built like the other conference pages
The method matches the Sun Belt, Mountain West, and Conference USA pages. Only the conference string changes. That makes the lists comparable. It also means a basketball-only membership never appears, because the file does not store it.
If the football file moves a member, this page moves with the file. Until that edit arrives, the current string remains. The source line under the table is the place to see that the roster is federal data, not a press release.
Where the schools are
These schools sit in 5 states. The largest groups are Ohio (6), Michigan (3), Illinois (1), Indiana (1), and New York (1). The rest of the roll is spread across the other states in the table.
Who runs them
Every school with a reported control is public. Control is the Scorecard field. It is not a judgment about quality.
Predominant degree is the credential the campus awards most often. On this list it is a bachelor's degree at 12 schools. A campus can still award other credentials.
How large they are
The largest undergraduate enrollments on this list are University at Buffalo in Buffalo, New York, with 20,112 undergraduates, Ohio University-Main Campus in Athens, Ohio, with 19,633 undergraduates, and Kent State University at Kent in Kent, Ohio, with 19,320 undergraduates. Enrollment is the undergraduate figure. It is not a ranking, and it leaves out graduate students.
Admission
12 of 12 schools report an admission rate. The median of those rates is 83%. 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 University of Akron Main Campus in Akron, Ohio, at 60%, Northern Illinois University in Dekalb, Illinois, at 70%, and University at Buffalo in Buffalo, New York, at 74%. 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 Toledo in Toledo, Ohio, at 92%, Central Michigan University in Mount Pleasant, Michigan, at 90%, and Kent State University at Kent in Kent, Ohio, at 86%.
What they charge
Among 12 public colleges that report an in-state sticker price, the median is $13,703.
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 12 schools that report earnings, the median of those school-level medians is $52,207. The clock starts at entry, not at graduation. The highest reported medians on this list are University at Buffalo in Buffalo, New York, at $70,814, Northern Illinois University in Dekalb, Illinois, at $57,808, and Central Michigan University in Mount Pleasant, Michigan, at $55,874.
Among 12 schools that report a graduation rate, the median rate is 61%. 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.
3 are also on R1 research universities. 9 are also on R2 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.