Private · Atlanta, GA
Clark Atlanta University
Get to know the college, from admissions and cost to life on campus.
Overview
Clark Atlanta is a 1988 merger of two firsts: Atlanta University (1865), the South's first HBCU granting graduate degrees, and Clark College (1869), the nation's first 4-year liberal arts college for Black students. That DNA shows most in Mass Media Arts, a program with a real pipeline: Spike Lee and Kenya Barris both came out of it. It's part of the Atlanta University Center with Spelman and Morehouse, never a single-school experience.
About Clark Atlanta University
- Type
- Private Research University
- Setting
- Urban
- Undergraduates
- 3,603
Admissions
- Early Decision/Early Action
- Yes
- Accepts Common App
- —
Cost
Tuition and aid
- Full cost of attendance
- $46,270per year
- Average family income
- $39,012
- Students with a school grant
- 45%
- Average school grant
- $8,416
- Average federal debt
- $26,000at graduation
- Need-blind
- —
- Meets full need
- —
- Merit scholarships
- Yes
- CSS Profile
- —
- International aid
- —
Academics
- Majors offered
- 29
- Freshmen who return
- 71%
- Notable
- 3Mass Media Arts tracks (journalism, PR, radio-TV-film) that also train Spelman and Morehouse students
Students
Campus life
- Setting
- Urban
- Location
- Atlanta, GA
- Live on campus
- —
- Student organizations
- —
- Varsity sports
- —
Clark Atlanta's own housing and student-life pages describe growth through stepping outside your comfort zone, and that's structurally true here: as part of the Atlanta University Center with Spelman and Morehouse, classes (Mass Media Arts trains all three schools' students) and social life regularly cross campus lines rather than staying contained to CAU. First-year housing is traditional, Holmes/Merner/Pfeiffer for women, Beckwith for men, with a mandatory meal plan; Brawley Hall and Heritage Commons give upperclassmen apartment-style options with private bedrooms and a fitness center. Greek life and cultural events round out a campus that reads as one piece of a bigger AUC whole, not a self-contained bubble.
Summarized by Spike from what students write: Clark Atlanta Student Life, Clark Atlanta Mission and History.
Outcomes
- Earnings 6 years in
- $36,860
- Graduate within 6 years
- 48%
- Average federal debt
- $26,000
- Graduates go into
- Fortune 500 Internships, Professional Networks, Careers in Research
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Spike Rankings 2027
Where Clark Atlanta University ranks.
Ranked on federal data about graduation, earnings and cost. How Spike ranks colleges
Common questions
Questions about Clark Atlanta University
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