Guide
How the Mountain West list is built
A school is on this page when its IPEDS football conference is Mountain West Conference. The list is a football roster. It is alphabetical. It is not a map of every university in the mountain time zone, and it is not a ranking.
The file still places Hawaii, San Diego State, Boise State, and the other current strings on this conference. Oregon, Washington, and BYU are not among them. Their football conferences are different, so they stay off.
- Schools
- 11
- States
- 8
- Median admit rate
- 89%
- All schools report a rate
- Median earnings
- $57,624
- 10 years after entry
The conference string
IPEDS names the conference Mountain West Conference. This page matches that string and no other. A school joins when the field changes to that name, and it leaves when the field changes away. This site does not keep a second roster from news reports.
Football membership is what the field can see. A campus that shares a state with these schools, and does not share the conference string, is a neighbor. Neighbors are not members.
Western schools in other conferences
The University of Oregon and the University of Washington in Seattle are Big Ten football schools in this file. Brigham Young University is a Big Twelve football school. None of those strings is Mountain West, so none of those schools is on this page.
The Pac-12 name still exists in the file on a much smaller set. A leftover conference string is not this conference. Use the Big Ten and Big 12 pages for the schools that moved in this file.
Compare campuses, not records
The columns are enrollment, admission, and the public or private type. They describe the university that fields the team. They do not describe wins, coaches, or bowl games. Those facts are outside the Scorecard.
Several members are also land-grant universities or flagships. Those are other lists with other rules. A Mountain West school is not a land-grant school unless the land-grant roster names it.
The file can lag a move
Conference membership in the news can change before this file changes. Until the football conference string changes, the page does not move the school. That lag is a property of the source, and the source line under the table names it.
The same rule builds the Sun Belt, American, Mid-American, and Conference USA pages. You can compare those rosters because the test is the same kind of field.
Where the schools are
These schools sit in 8 states. The largest groups are California (3), Nevada (2), Colorado (1), Hawaii (1), and Idaho (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 11 schools. A campus can still award other credentials.
How large they are
The largest undergraduate enrollments on this list are San Diego State University in San Diego, California, with 35,377 undergraduates, San Jose State University in San Jose, California, with 27,601 undergraduates, and Colorado State University-Fort Collins in Fort Collins, Colorado, with 25,538 undergraduates. Enrollment is the undergraduate figure. It is not a ranking, and it leaves out graduate students.
Admission
11 of 11 schools report an admission rate. The median of those rates is 89%. 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 San Diego State University in San Diego, California, at 36%, University of Nevada-Reno in Reno, Nevada, at 74%, and San Jose State University in San Jose, California, at 85%. 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 Wyoming in Laramie, Wyoming, at 97%, University of Nevada-Las Vegas in Las Vegas, Nevada, at 96%, and California State University-Fresno in Fresno, California, at 95%.
What they charge
Among 11 public colleges that report an in-state sticker price, the median is $9,228.
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 11 schools that report earnings, the median of those school-level medians is $57,624. The clock starts at entry, not at graduation. The highest reported medians on this list are San Jose State University in San Jose, California, at $78,988, San Diego State University in San Diego, California, at $64,909, and California State University-Fresno in Fresno, California, at $61,244.
Among 11 schools that report a graduation rate, the median rate is 60%. 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.
6 are also on R1 research universities. 4 are also on R2 research universities. 6 are 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.