School	Northern Illinois University	Southern Illinois University--Carbondale	Illinois State University	University of Illinois--Chicago
Public/Private	Public	Public	Public	Public
Founded	1895	1869	1857	1965
Religious Affiliation	No affiliation	No affiliation	No affiliation	No affiliation
Size	16,341	17,939	17,518	16,374
Location
City/State	DeKalb, IL	Carbondale, IL	Normal, IL	Chicago, IL
Setting	Suburban	Rural	City	Major City
Distance from home	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
Academics
Student-to-faculty ratio	18/1	19/1	20/1	13/1
Full-time faculty	92%	91%	91%	87%
Classes taught by TAs	12%	N/A	14%	16%
Classes with under 20 students	44%	39%	27%	34%
Classes with 50+ students	11%	11%	11%	16%
Average graduation rate	52%	39%	53%	35%
Cost
Private tuition and fees	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
Public in-state tuition and fees	N/A	$3,936	$4,210	$4,644
Public out-of-state tuition and fees	N/A	$6,801	$10,465	$10,920
Room/Board	N/A	$3,889	$4,116	$6,760
Financial Aid*
Students receiving:    Need-based grants	N/A	43%	33%	N/A
Need-based self-help aid	N/A	46%	43%	N/A
Merit aid	N/A	20%	5%	N/A
Students whose need was fully met	N/A	40%	34%	N/A
Average financial aid package	N/A	$6,062	$7,051	N/A
Average need-based grant	N/A	$4,040	$5,046	N/A
Admissions
Selectivity	Selective	Selective	Selective	More selective
Acceptance rate	70%	74%	77%	63%
Number of applicants	13,317	10,716	10,703	10,524
Average high school GPA	N/A	N/A	3.21	N/A
SAT/ACT (25/75 percentile)	20- 25	20- 243	20- 25	20- 25
Student Satisfaction
Freshman retention rate	73%9	67%	74%	73%
Alumni giving rate	9%	N/A	9%	9%
Student Body
Diversity**	yes	yes	no	yes
Fraternity members	11%	4%	13%	1%
Sorority members	7%	2%	11%	1%
Students living off campus	65%	76%	60%	90%

N/A indicates that the school did not provide data to U.S. News in a certain area, or that the data is not applicable
to a particular school, such as in-state or out-of-state tuition for private schools.

*All financial aid data is based on the total number of undergraduates who applied for aid.
**A school is considered diverse if the minority population is greater than the national average of 17 percent.