The University of Hawaii at Hilo is a smaller campus than the flagship in Honolulu (Manoa). With just 3,000 undergraduates and 1000 grad students, this campus feels more like a small liberal arts college than a public university. The UH system has three full universities, and 7 community colleges, one of which sits on the same campus as UH-Hilo, so students here have a broad variety of courses from which to choose at both schools.
Because it’s a public university in the Western states, UH-Hilo offers the WUE tuition discount to all incoming freshmen who have a 3.0 high school GPA, so out of state students pay about 50% more in tuition than local students. This campus has about 60% in-state students and 40% out of state and international students.
UH-Hilo offers several dozen majors, a with the biggest draws being marine biology and astronomy. When I toured, a California family was also touring, and the student (who was intending to be an astronomy major) was deciding between UH-Hilo and Cal Poly Humboldt.
Evelyn visited UH-Hilo in January, 2023. Our write-up on the Manoa campus, which is located in Honolulu on Oahu, is here. You can see all of her photos below.