Northern Illinois University Scholarship Calculator

Enter your LSAT and GPA to see where you stand against Northern Illinois University's admitted class and the grant range it actually publishes.

Northern Illinois University reports a median grant of $8,274 per year for students receiving financial aid, and 78% of its students receive aid, and none of its aid reaches full tuition — every award covers part of the tuition. The median award covers about 35% of annual tuition, so the school still costs roughly $15,393 per year in tuition after aid.

What three years would actually cost you

At Northern Illinois University, three years of tuition, housing and fees cost $140,427 before aid. A grant of $4,137 to $12,411 a year would leave you paying between $103,194 and $128,016 over three years. The lower figure assumes the larger award applies every year, so treat it as a floor rather than a bill.

The net figure applies this school's median award to every year and every student, so it is a floor rather than a bill — it excludes students who receive nothing, tuition increases, and living costs beyond what this school publishes. See the full cost breakdown →

Is this school worth your score?

Northern Illinois University sits in the 2nd percentile of law schools by median LSAT but the 7th percentile by median grant, so it gives about what its selectivity would predict. Among the 164 schools with both figures reported, that is a gap of 5 percentile points.

Selectivity and generosity are two different things. A school can sit high on one and low on the other — and that gap is the part worth knowing before you decide where to apply.

The comparison set is the 164 schools that report an annual tuition figure and a median grant. Schools reporting tuition per credit hour are excluded because there is no annual aid figure to line up against. Percentiles are rank positions, not estimates.

Where this school sits against the extremes

The most and least generous schools relative to their own selectivity, for reference:

Is Northern Illinois University getting more competitive?

Applications to Northern Illinois University rose from 557 for the 2015 entering class to 951 for 2025, while the class enrolled 131 students — so there were 7.3 applicants per place, against 6.6 in 2015. Between 2023 and 2025 that figure moved from 7.1 to 7.3, and competition for each place has stayed roughly level.

Applicants per place is applications divided by the number who actually enrolled. It moves with how selective the school is, not with how many offers it sends — a school can issue more offers without becoming harder to get into. The summary above judges the direction over the three most recent entering classes, not across the whole span: a single unusual year in the middle of eleven is not a trend.

How Northern Illinois University compares to schools at the same level

These are the schools with the closest median LSAT to Northern Illinois University's. The table sorts by median grant, because that is usually what the comparison turns on once the academic profile is close enough — and the three-year net cost column shows what each of those grants actually leaves you paying.

Applicants per place is applications divided by students who enrolled. The competition column compares the most recent three entering classes rather than the full span, because a single year in the middle of that span is not a trend. Conditional retention is the share of students who kept a need-based conditional scholarship after year one review.

What this school's numbers mean

Northern Illinois University is in . It admits 44.3% of applicants, and 78% of its students receive financial aid.

The four tiers above come straight from the school's 509 disclosure. They matter because the same coverage figure can mean very different things — a school where most awards are half-tuition grants and one where most are full-tuition grants offer students something quite different.

Related pages

• Northern Illinois University financial aid breakdown — coverage, award size, all four tiers and conditional outcomes
• Northern Illinois University ABA 509 report — every figure from the disclosure, section by section
• Northern Illinois University cost of attendance — three-year total cost, ranked against every school
• Northern Illinois University admissions data — acceptance, LSAT, GPA, bar passage and class size
• All-school scholarship estimator — compare every ABA law school at once