Public Accountability Report

Improving School Readiness and Student Success

• Illinois State University enrolled 21,994 students in Fall 2025, marking four years of consecutive growth. Of this total number, 19,513 students were enrolled in undergraduate study and 2,481 were enrolled in graduate coursework.
• ISU enrolled a first-time-in-college cohort of 4,253 students. These strong fall enrollment figures attest to the University’s commitment to providing an excellent educational experience and individualized attention.
• Illinois State consistently admits students with strong academic profiles. The academic quality of this year’s freshman class increased further with a high school GPA of 3.6 on a 4.0 scale. The incoming freshman class also included 527 new students in the Honors Program.
• Illinois State’s student body is increasingly becoming more diverse, with 44% of this year’s freshman class coming from traditionally underrepresented groups. 35% of the total student population comes from traditionally underrepresented groups.
• 81.9% of students who enrolled for the first time in college in Fall 2024 returned to the University in Fall 2025.
• Illinois State is one of almost 370 institutions nationwide to hold the prestigious Elective Classification for Community Engagement from the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.
• Illinois State has been recognized as a Voter Friendly Campus for the fourth year in a row, demonstrating the University’s campuswide commitment to civic engagement, a core value of the University.
• Illinois State made U.S. News & World Report's 2026 rankings of America's Top Public Schools, at No. 122, based on academic quality and excellence.
• Illinois State University graduate programs in the College of Arts and Sciences, College of Business, College of Education, and Wonsook Kim College of Fine Arts are recognized in U.S. News & World Report’s graduate rankings.
• Illinois State University is recognized in Phi Theta Kappa’s Excellence in Community College Transfer Honor Roll for 2025. The honor identifies four-year colleges and universities that offer exemplary support for community college transfers.
• Washington Monthly ranked the University 37th out of 367 “Best Bang for the Buck” Colleges in the Midwest. The University was also ranked in Money’s 2025 list of Best Public Colleges in America for excellent value.
• Washington Monthly also ranked the University No. 161 out of all national universities for the institution's contribution to the public good through social mobility, research, and public services.
• Illinois State students complete their degrees on time, as is evidenced by the University’s six-year graduation rate of 67.3%.
• 75% of the first-time-in-college students who graduated in fiscal year 2025 completed their baccalaureate degree in four years or less.
• The Teaching Materials Center is a unique collection of pre-K through Grade 12 materials to support the teacher education programs at ISU. Set up like a school library, the Center provides education students with resources to enhance their collegiate experience and help prepare them for their careers as teachers.
• Mennonite College of Nursing prelicensure graduates consistently achieve a high NCLEX pass rate—96% percent in 2024, well above state and national averages.

Increasing Employment and Attracting, Retaining, and Growing Businesses

• Illinois State University conferred 5,563 degrees in fiscal year 2025, including 4,391 baccalaureate degrees and 1,172 graduate degrees.
• The National Center for Education Statistics data illustrates that the University’s graduation rates exceed the national average for public institutions.
• Externally sponsored research, instruction, creative works, and service approximated $37.5 million in fiscal year 2024.
• The College of Education collaborated with Chicago Public Schools and the City Colleges of Chicago on the Teach Chicago Tomorrow teacher pipeline initiative. The initiative is part of a long-term strategy to prepare quality teachers to teach in Chicago schools. These students joined Illinois State University in the fall of 2025 after completing an associate degree in Chicago’s community colleges.
• The University is home to the only Dance Teacher Education licensure program within the State of Illinois.
• The Accounting program is accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), which is the gold standard in professional accreditation for business schools worldwide and held by a very small fraction of schools.
• Illinois State University is the only public university offering a major in International Business in the State of Illinois. 
• The Mathematics department at ISU is recognized by the Society of Actuaries Center of Excellence and by the Casualty Actuarial Society’s University Recognition Program at the Gold Level.
• The Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders continues to produce successful speech-language pathologists and audiologists. The three-year average pass rate on the Praxis exam for the Master’s of Speech-Language Pathology is 100%. 
• With enrollment that has more than doubled in size within the last six years, the Creative Technologies program has a 90% job placement rate for graduating students, with alumni working for well-known companies such as Major League Baseball; The Walt Disney Company; State Farm Insurance; Digital Kitchen; Imagine Artists; GROWMARK, Inc.; GE (General Electric); IBM; Leo Burnett; Motorola; R.R. Donnelley; Tesla; and UPS.