Quad
Trends by state

Trends by state

South Dakota

11 colleges on the site: 6 public, 5 private nonprofit. Their undergraduates fell 9% in total since fall 2014, to 26,530 today (10 of 11 South Dakota colleges in the panel).

Explore South Dakota's colleges

How South Dakota's colleges changed

The median South Dakota college, fall 2014 to fall 2024, against the national median (dashed) over the same .

Undergraduates

-10%

over 10 years, median college

  • This state
  • National median

Applicants

+61%

over 10 years, median college

  • This state
  • National median

Acceptance rate

+3.0 pts

over 10 years, median college

  • This state
  • National median

Average total cost

-12%

over 10 years, median college

  • This state
  • National median

Public and private

State stories are often public-system stories: a state's publics shrinking while its privates hold, or the reverse.

Public

6 colleges

Private nonprofit

4 colleges

Where South Dakota's first-years come from

Top sending states

  1. South Dakota (in-state)56%
  2. MN16%
  3. IA8%
  4. NE7%
  5. CO2%
  6. WY2%
  7. ND2%
  8. WI1%

Public:

34% → 39% (6 colleges)

Private nonprofit:

45% → 39% (5 colleges)

First-years crossing state lines, fall 2024

Inflow
2,680
Outflow
1,279
Net
+1,401

South Dakota's colleges enroll 2.1 first-years from other states for every South Dakota resident who starts college in another state, among four-year colleges on this site.

Colleges taking the most of the inflow

  1. South Dakota State University40%
  2. University of South Dakota18%
  3. South Dakota School of Mines and Technology11%
  4. Black Hills State University8%
  5. Augustana University8%

One fall, over campus-based colleges only: not that fall, not for-profit, and not a campus that merged or split.

Biggest movers in South Dakota

The same as the national lists, restricted to South Dakota's colleges.

Applications surged

, fall 2014 to fall 2024

Median college: +55.2% (2 colleges ranked)

  1. 1University of South Dakota+68.4%3,542 → 5,965
  2. 2South Dakota State University+42.0%5,133 → 7,287

Sources:IPEDS Admissions survey, Fall 2014 to Fall 2024;College Scorecard (enrollment), Fall 2014 to Fall 2024;IPEDS Fall Enrollment survey (distance education), Fall 2014 to Fall 2024About the data(built 2026-10-12; CPI retrieved 2026-10-12)

Top 2 and how it's ranked

Grew the most

, fall 2014 to fall 2024

Median college: −11.3% (7 colleges ranked)

  1. 1Augustana University+21.4%1,619 → 1,965
  2. 2University of Sioux Falls+12.6%1,082 → 1,218

Sources:College Scorecard (enrollment), Fall 2014 to Fall 2024;IPEDS Fall Enrollment survey (distance education), Fall 2014 to Fall 2024About the data(built 2026-10-12; CPI retrieved 2026-10-12)

Top 2 and how it's ranked

Students pay much less

(in 2023–24 dollars), 2013–14 to 2023–24

Median college: −12.6% (8 colleges ranked)

  1. 1South Dakota School of Mines and Technology−18.4%$27,709 → $22,604
  2. 2Northern State University−17.8%$21,246 → $17,457
  3. 3University of Sioux Falls−14.4%$26,048 → $22,304
  4. 4Black Hills State University−13.8%$20,674 → $17,814
  5. 5University of South Dakota−11.4%$23,063 → $20,435
  6. 6South Dakota State University−8.0%$23,374 → $21,508
  7. 7Augustana University−2.4%$26,317 → $25,695

Sources:IPEDS Institutional Characteristics survey, 2013–14 to 2023–24;IPEDS Student Financial Aid survey, 2013–14 to 2023–24;College Scorecard (enrollment), Fall 2013 to Fall 2024;inflation: BLS CPI-U, school-year averagesAbout the data(built 2026-10-12; CPI retrieved 2026-10-12)

Top 7 and how it's ranked

Public research universities

South Dakota's public R1 and R2 universities (Carnegie 2025), with their undergraduate change over the same window. No classification in the data means "flagship," so this is simply the state's public research universities.

How this was measured

  • Which colleges. Colleges with 300 or more undergraduates in both fall 2014 and fall 2024: 10 of 11 South Dakota colleges. It's a , so colleges entering or leaving the data don't look like change.
  • Average total cost is an academic-year figure, one year behind fall: 2013–14 to 2023–24, after inflation.
  • Out-of-state shares are collected in even-numbered falls only; odd years are gaps, not zeros.
  • Totals and medians both appear because they can diverge: a state's total can fall more (or less) than its median college when its biggest colleges move differently.
  • No policy attribution. This page shows what changed, not why; a state's mix of public, private, and for-profit colleges, and its system policies, aren't broken out as causes.
  • First-years crossing state lines is a single snapshot, fall 2024, over campus-based colleges only: colleges that fall, for-profit colleges, and campuses that merged or split are left out. It's the newest fall the site's per-college home-state tables cover, not this page's ten-year window.

Sources:College Scorecard (enrollment), Fall 2014 to Fall 2024;IPEDS Admissions survey, Fall 2014 to Fall 2024;IPEDS Institutional Characteristics survey, 2014–15 to 2023–24;IPEDS Student Financial Aid survey, 2014–15 to 2023–24;IPEDS Fall Enrollment survey (part C, residence of first-time students), Fall 2014 to Fall 2024;inflation: BLS CPI-U, school-year averagesAbout the data(built 2026-10-12; CPI retrieved 2026-10-12)