University of Minnesota

In brief

The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, traces its roots to a preparatory school founded in Minneapolis in 1851, seven years before statehood; it became a college in 1869. With campuses in Minneapolis and St. Paul, it is one of the largest universities in the country, with about 52,000 students. By our measure of academic influence, it ranks #21 in the United States and #46 in the world. It admitted 79.8% of applicants for fall 2024; admitted students had a median SAT score of 1400 and a median ACT score of 28.

It is the flagship of the University of Minnesota System, which also has campuses in Crookston, Rochester, Duluth, and Morris.

Where Minnesota’s influence is strongest

Minnesota’s influence is broad, led by nursing, psychology, and medicine. Its strongest broad fields, by US rank in our data, are:

• Nursing: #12 in the US (#20 in the world)
• Psychology and medicine: #14 each
• Chemistry and engineering: #15 each

Within those fields, Minnesota is a national leader in several specialties:

• #1 in the US and the world: biomimetics
• #1 in the US: special education
• #4: personality psychology and abnormal psychology

By comparison, Minnesota sits further back in criminal justice (#33), literature (#34), and religious studies (#71).

How we measure influence: these ranks come from the citations and recognition earned by a school’s faculty and alumni in each discipline, not from surveys or admissions statistics. See our methodology.

Notable people

Some 26 Minnesota-connected people have won the Nobel Prize, including the physicists Ernest Lawrence, Walter Brattain, and John Bardeen, the chemist Melvin Calvin, the economists Milton Friedman and George Stigler, and the songwriter Bob Dylan. Its alumni and faculty also include the psychologist B.F. Skinner, the poet John Berryman, the writer Garrison Keillor, Chief Justice Warren Burger, the civil rights leader Roy Wilkins, and Vice Presidents Hubert Humphrey and Walter Mondale. Our full lists of Minnesota’s most influential alumni and faculty appear below.

Frequently asked questions

Is Minnesota hard to get into? No. It admitted 79.8% of applicants for fall 2024; the middle half of admitted students scored 640–730 on the SAT reading section and 660–770 on math.

What does Minnesota cost after financial aid? Tuition is $18,482 for Minnesota residents and $41,368 for out-of-state students in 2025–26. The average net price for aided students with family incomes of $48,000–$75,000 was $9,031 in 2024–25; it ranged from about $5,885 for incomes below $30,000 to $29,424 for incomes above $110,000.

How do Minnesota graduates do? 85.2% of students who started in 2019 graduated within six years, and 91% of first-year students return for a second year. Ten years after starting college, former students had median earnings of $74,314.

What is Minnesota best known for academically? By our influence data: nursing, psychology, and medicine, plus biomimetics, where it ranks first in the world.