Ferris State University

Public · Moderately Selective · MI

Photo: Michael Barera (CC BY-SA 4.0)

School data & stats

TypePublic

LocationMI · Midwest

SettingRural

Undergrads8,106

Student:faculty15:1

Outcomes

4-yr grad rate33.2%

6-yr grad rate46.9%

Drop-out rate22.4%

Study abroad—

Cost

In-state tuition$15k

Out-of-state tuition$15k

Application fee—

Community

Racial diversity27.3%

Gender diversity54.2%

International1.2%

Identity—

Overview

Ferris State, in Big Rapids, Michigan, is a public university built around an unusually career-focused catalog — pharmacy, optometry, welding engineering technology, and heating/ventilation/air conditioning technology sit alongside more conventional majors, all oriented toward direct entry into a specific trade or profession. It also administers the Kendall College of Art and Design in Grand Rapids, giving Ferris a dual-campus identity spanning skilled trades, health professions, and fine arts under one institutional umbrella.

Academics

The Michigan College of Optometry and College of Pharmacy are recognized professional programs that few regional public universities offer at all, and technical degrees like welding engineering technology and HVACR are similarly rare at the four-year level, giving Ferris a genuine niche for students who want a direct, credential-focused path into a specific career rather than a broad liberal-arts exploration.

Campus & student life

Big Rapids is a small, rural Michigan town, and campus life there is centered squarely on the university itself, while the Kendall College of Art and Design campus in Grand Rapids offers a very different, urban studio-arts experience under the same institutional umbrella. Ferris hockey competes at the Division I level even though most Bulldogs athletics play Division II, a genuine point of distinction, and the football program has had real national success at the D2 level.

Getting in

Admission is generally accessible and geared toward students with a clear career direction, particularly for its technical and health-professions programs, rather than built around a broad liberal-arts holistic review; specific professional programs like optometry and pharmacy have their own more competitive, sequenced admission tracks that typically begin with prerequisite coursework before a separate application into the professional program itself, closer to a pre-professional pipeline than a single undergraduate admissions decision.

After graduation

Graduates of the health-professions and technical programs — optometry, pharmacy, welding engineering technology, HVACR — tend to move directly into licensed or credentialed careers with strong regional and national demand, a more direct professional pipeline than many broader public universities offer.

Worth knowing

The combination of skilled-trades degrees with health professions like pharmacy and optometry is genuinely unusual for one university, and Division I hockey inside an otherwise Division II athletics program is a distinctive quirk — a strong fit for students who already know they want a specific, hands-on career path.

ferris.edu ↗

Admissions

Acceptance rate91.4%

Enrolled mid-50%SAT 890–1120 · ACT 20–24

Test policyoptional

Rec letters0

Deadlines (2026–27 cycle)

AdmissionRolling

Applying