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Columbia College Data & Information Overview

73 awards Ranking Badges
Great Price Value for Your Money
99% Acceptance Rate
Find out more about how Columbia College ranks, how diverse it is, what majors it offers, and other essential facts below.
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How Well Is Columbia College Ranked?

#1,009 Best Colleges in Nation
#10 Best Colleges in SC
Criminal Justice Studies Highest Ranked Major

2024 Rankings

College Factual analyzes over 2,000 colleges and universities in its annual rankings and ranks them in a variety of ways, including most diverse, best overall quality, best for non-traditional students, and much more.

Columbia College was awarded 73 badges in the 2024 rankings. The highest ranked major at the school is criminal justice studies.

Explore Best Ranked Schools for You

Explore the best ranked schools for the programs you are most interested in.

Overall Quality

Columbia College South Carolina landed the #1,009 spot in College Factual's 2024 ranking of best overall colleges in the United States. The higher ed experts analyzed 2,217 colleges and universities across the nation to determine this ranking. This is an improvement over the previous year, when Columbia College South Carolina held the #1,239 spot on the Best Overall Colleges list.

Columbia College South Carolina also holds the #10 spot on the Best Colleges in South Carolina ranking.

See all of the rankings for Columbia College.

Is It Hard to Get Into Columbia College South Carolina?

99% Acceptance Rate
82% Of Accepted Are Women

Acceptance Rate

With an acceptance rate of 99%, Columbia College South Carolina has a fairly liberal admissions policy. However, don't just assume you'll get in! Put together a good application and make sure you include all requested documents and materials.

Learn more about Columbia College admissions.

Columbia College Faculty

11 to 1 Student to Faculty
30% Full Time Teachers

Student to Faculty Ratio

The student to faculty ratio at Columbia College South Carolina is an impressive 11 to 1. That's quite good when you compare it to the national average of 15 to 1. This is a good sign that students at the school will have more opportunities for one-on-one interactions with their professors.

Percent of Full-Time Faculty

Another measure that is often used to estimate how much access students will have to their professors is how many faculty members are full-time. The idea here is that part-time faculty tend to spend less time on campus, so they may not be as available to students as full-timers.

The full-time faculty percentage at Columbia College is 30%. This is lower than the national average of 47%.

Full-Time Faculty Percent  30 out of 100
0
100

Retention and Graduation Rates at Columbia College

54% Freshmen Retention
54% On-Time Graduation Rate

Freshmen Retention Rate

The freshmen retention rate is a sign of how many full-time students like a college or university well enough to come back for their sophomore year. At Columbia College this rate is 54%, which is a bit lower than the national average of 68%.

Freshmen Retention Rate  54 out of 100
0
100

Graduation Rate

The on-time graduation rate for someone pursuing a bachelor's degree is typically four years. This rate at Columbia College South Carolina for first-time, full-time students is 54%, which is better than the national average of 33.3%.

On-Time Graduation Rate  54 out of 100
0
100

Find out more about the retention and graduation rates at Columbia College.

Columbia College Undergraduate Student Diversity

641 Full-Time Undergraduates
54.3% Racial-Ethnic Minorities*
96.1% Percent Women

During the 2017-2018 academic year, there were 979 undergraduates at Columbia College South Carolina with 641 being full-time and 338 being part-time.

How Much Does Columbia College Cost?

$20,247 Net Price
77% Take Out Loans
$25,736 Total Student Loans
The overall average net price of Columbia College South Carolina is $20,247. The affordability of the school largely depends on your financial need since net price varies by income group. See the table below for the net price for different income groups.

Net Price by Income Group for Columbia College South Carolina

$0-30 K $30K-48K $48-75 $75-110K $110K +
$18,657 $19,785 $20,077 $24,443 $23,175

The net price is calculated by adding tuition, room, board and other costs and subtracting financial aid.Note that the net price is typically less than the published for a school. For more information on the sticker price of Columbia College South Carolina, see our tuition and fees and room and board pages.

Student Loan Debt

It's not uncommon for college students to take out loans to pay for school. In fact, almost 66% of students nationwide depend at least partially on loans. At Columbia College South Carolina, approximately 77% of students took out student loans averaging $6,434 a year. That adds up to $25,736 over four years for those students.

The student loan default rate at Columbia College South Carolina is 6.0%. This is significantly lower than the national default rate of 10.1%, which is a good sign that you'll be able to pay back your student loans.

Get more details about paying for Columbia College.

How Much Money Do Columbia College South Carolina Graduates Make?

$36,585 Avg Salary of Grads
High Earnings Boost
The pay for some majors is higher than others, but on average, students who graduate with a bachelor's degree from Columbia College South Carolina make about $36,585 a year during their first few years of employment after graduation. Unfortunately, this is 14% less that the average college graduate's salary of $42,485 per year. However, graduates in your major field may make more.

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See which majors at Columbia College make the most money.

Location of Columbia College

South Carolina State
641 Full-Time Undergraduates
Midsize City Campus Setting
Located in Columbia, South Carolina, Columbia College is a private not-for-profit institution. The location of the school is great for students who enjoy the amenities of city life.

Get more details about the location of Columbia College.

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Contact details for Columbia College South Carolina are given below.

Contact Details
Address: 1301 Columbia College Dr, Columbia, SC 29203
Phone: 803-786-3012
Website: www.columbiasc.edu/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/columbiacollegesc
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/ColumbiaKoala

Columbia College Majors

45 Majors With Completions
276 Undergraduate Degrees
160 Graduate Degrees
During the most recent year for which we have data, students from 45 majors graduated from Columbia College. Of these students, 276 received undergraduate degrees and 160 graduated with a master's or doctor's degree. The following table lists the most popular undergraduate majors along with the average salary graduates from those majors make.

Most Popular Majors Bachelor’s Degrees Average Salary of Graduates
Criminal Justice & Corrections 48 $44,941
Business Administration & Management 22 NA
Teacher Education Grade Specific 22 $31,329
Homeland Security 18 $56,728
General Biology 15 $25,452
Communication Sciences 15 NA
Community Organization & Advocacy 14 NA
General Psychology 13 $27,946
General Education 10 NA
Social Work 10 $31,014

Learn more about the majors offered at Columbia College along with which ones have the highest average starting salaries.

Online Learning at Columbia College South Carolina

80% Take At Least One Class Online
47% Take All Classes Online

Online learning is becoming popular at even the oldest colleges and universities in the United States. Not only are online classes great for returning adults with busy schedules, they are also frequented by a growing number of traditional students.

In 2020-2021, 1,107 students took at least one online class at Columbia College. This is an increase from the 988 students who took online classes the previous year.

Year Took at Least One Online Class Took All Classes Online
2020-2021 1,107 659
2019-2020 988 507
2018-2019 636 381
2017-2018 642 387
2016-2017 789 551

Learn more about online learning at Columbia College.

If you’re considering Columbia College, here are some more schools you may be interested in knowing more about.

Curious on how these schools stack up against Columbia College South Carolina? Pit them head to head with College Combat, our free interactive tool that lets you compare college on the features that matter most to you!

Notes and References

Footnotes

*The racial-ethnic minorities count is calculated by taking the total number of students and subtracting white students, international students, and students whose race/ethnicity was unknown. This number is then divided by the total number of students at the school to obtain the racial-ethnic minorities percentage.

References

More about our data sources and methodologies.

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