Admissions & acceptance rate
First-time freshman admissions: how selective the college is, and how many admitted students choose to enroll.
Graduation rate & outcomes
Completion, retention, and the equity gap between Pell and non-Pell students.
Pell equity
Non-Pell students graduate at a 9.0-point higher rate than Pell recipients.
Program outcomes
Federal Program Performance Data: how each program's graduate earnings and debt measure up under Financial Value Transparency and Gainful Employment.
Of 177 Title IV programs, 40 pass the federal Gainful Employment test and 1 fails. 136 have graduate earnings too small to publish, so they carry no pass/fail verdict.
Pass / fail distribution
- Passing40 · 22.6%
- No Data136 · 76.8%
- Failing1 · 0.6%
Severity spectrum
Tiers band programs by how far graduate earnings sit above or below the benchmark, from Critical (below −15%) through Safe (above +25%). No data means earnings were privacy-suppressed.
Earnings premium gap
Graduate earnings versus the federal benchmark, worst gaps first.
Debt vs earnings
Median completer debt against median graduate earnings, highest burden first.
Accreditation status & history
Who accredits the institution, current standing, and any past actions.
Higher Learning Commission
Programmatic accreditations · 21
Action history · 20
- Aug 2024Grant Substantive Change: OtherAmerican Occupational Therapy Association, Accreditation Council for Occupational Therapy Education · Occupational Therapy (OTD) - Programs leading to a Doctoral Degree
- Aug 2023Renewal of AccreditationAmerican Occupational Therapy Association, Accreditation Council for Occupational Therapy Education · Occupational Therapy (OTD) - Programs leading to a Doctoral Degree
- Feb 2023Renewal of AccreditationAmerican Dental Association, Commission on Dental Accreditation · Dental Hygiene (DH)
- Apr 2021Grant Substantive Change: ProgramAmerican Dental Association, Commission on Dental Accreditation · Dental Hygiene (DH)
- Feb 2021Removal of Show Cause StatusAmerican Bar Association, Council of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar · Law (LAW) - Professional schools
Tuition & cost
What families actually pay, broken down by family income.
Net price by family income
Negative values mean aid exceeds the published cost of attendance for that income band.
Federal aid volume & trends
Pell grants and federal Direct Loan volume disbursed to students, and how they've trended.
In AY 2024–25, 1,636 students received $9.2M in Pell grants, alongside $52.1M in federal Direct Loans.
Pell recipients · 5-year trend
Loan volume by type · AY 2024–25
Loan awards count each loan type a student holds, not unique borrowers; one student may carry several (e.g. subsidized and unsubsidized), so the per-type figures are the reliable detail.
Student loan default rate
The share of student borrowers who default on federal loans within three years, against the national benchmark.
Of 2,264 borrowers who entered repayment, 18 (0.7%) defaulted within three years — below the 2.3% national rate.
Default rate vs national, by cohort
* Cohorts 2020 and later read near 0% because the federal COVID-19 payment pause (CARES Act) suspended defaults nationwide. These years reflect a national policy, not institutional performance; the 2019 cohort is the last measured under normal repayment.
Academic programs at University of South Dakota
Top program areas ranked by completions.
Top program families by completions
Enrollment trends & demographics
Fall headcount, 12-month unduplicated enrollment, and student body composition.
Gender split
Race / ethnicity composition
Athletics & Title IX gender equity
How athletic participation, aid, and spending are split between men and women.
Men vs women · spending splits
Sport-by-sport · 10
Campus safety & crime statistics
Reported on-campus crimes over the last three years, including violence and hate crimes.
3-year trend
Criminal offenses by type
By location
- On campus16
- Non-campus4
Includes 12 in residence halls (a subset of on-campus, not added to the total).
VAWA offenses
Hate crimes by bias
No hate crimes reported.
Arrests vs disciplinary referrals
Residence-hall fires
- Coyote Village2 firesOpen flamesDamage $0-$99
- Coyote Village2 firesCookingDamage $0-$99
Data quality: 6 reports were later determined unfounded across the reporting period and are excluded from the totals above.
Student-faculty ratio
Student-to-faculty ratio and instructional staff counts.
University of South Dakota vs Peer comparison
The peer institutions University of South Dakota selected for federal comparison reporting.
A larger shape on any axis means this institution outperforms its peers on that dimension. For acceptance rate and net price, lower raw values are inverted so "more selective" and "more affordable" appear larger.
| Carnegie | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
SubjectUniversity of South Dakota | 60% | — | 10,619 | $19,155 | R2 Research |
South Dakota State University | 62% | 98.3% | 12,056 | $18,219 | R2 Research |
University of Missouri-Kansas City | 54% | 72.2% | 14,732 | $12,837 | R2 Research |
University of Missouri-St Louis | 57% | 62.7% | 14,736 | $12,323 | R2 Research |
University of Nebraska at Omaha | 49% | 87.0% | 14,972 | $12,791 | R2 Research |
University of North Dakota | 61% | 76.9% | 15,019 | $18,998 | R2 Research |
| Peer group median | 59% | 76.9% | 14,734 | $15,528 |
Frequently asked questions about University of South Dakota
Quick answers to the questions most often asked about University of South Dakota.
What is the graduation rate at University of South Dakota?
How many students attend University of South Dakota?
What is the average net price at University of South Dakota?
What is the yield rate at University of South Dakota?
Where is University of South Dakota located?
Have a question this page can’t answer?
Ask Clema anything about University of South Dakota and its peers — plain language in, cited answers out, in minutes instead of days.
Free for teams up to 3 · No credit card