College Factual  by our College Data Analytics Team
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University of San Diego Data & Information Overview

438 awards Ranking Badges
Great Price Value for Your Money
53% Acceptance Rate
If you want to know more about University of San Diego, such as what majors does it offer, how diverse it is, how well it ranks, and more, this is your one-stop resource.
If you’re interested in learning more about a particular stat, just click on its tile to go to a new page that covers the topic more in-depth. Also, you can jump to any section of this page by clicking one of the links below.

How Well Is University of San Diego Ranked?

#187 Best Colleges in Nation
#29 Best Colleges in CA
Criminal Justice Highest Ranked Major
Quality Badge

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.

University of San Diego was awarded 438 badges in the 2024 rankings. The highest ranked major at the school is criminal justice.

Explore Best Ranked Schools for You

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

Overall Quality

USD is ranked #187 out of 2,217 schools in the nation for overall quality on College Factual's 2024 Best Colleges list. This puts it in the top 10% of all schools in the nation. This is an improvement over the previous year, when USD held the #207 spot on the Best Overall Colleges list.

USD is also ranked #29 out of 168 schools in California.

See all of the rankings for University of San Diego.

Is It Hard to Get Into USD?

53% Acceptance Rate
63% Of Accepted Are Women

Acceptance Rate

The acceptance rate at University of San Diego is a competitive 53%, so make sure you take your application seriously when putting it together. Even leaving out a minor detail could be a reason to move you to the rejection pile.

Learn more about University of San Diego admissions.

University of San Diego Faculty

13 to 1 Student to Faculty
51% Full Time Teachers

Student to Faculty Ratio

With a student to faculty ratio of 13 to 1, University of San Diego is about average in this regard as the nationwide rate is 15 to 1. While this does not translate directly to class size, it's a good indicator of how much time professors will have to spend with their students on a one-on-one basis.

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 University of San Diego is 51%. This is comparable to the national average of 47%.

Full-Time Faculty Percent  51 out of 100
0
100

Retention and Graduation Rates at University of San Diego

92% Freshmen Retention
66% On-Time Graduation Rate

Freshmen Retention Rate

University of San Diego has a freshmen retention rate of 92%. That's a good sign that full-time students like the school and their professors enough to want to stick around for another year. It's also a sign that the admissions team did a good job in choosing applicants who were a good fit for the school.

Freshmen Retention Rate  92 out of 100
0
100

Graduation Rate

Students are considered to have graduated on time if they finish their studies within four years. At USD the on-time graduation rate of first-time, full-time students is 66%. That is great when compared to the national average of 33.3%

On-Time Graduation Rate  66 out of 100
0
100

Find out more about the retention and graduation rates at University of San Diego.

University of San Diego Undergraduate Student Diversity

5,294 Full-Time Undergraduates
40.6% Racial-Ethnic Minorities*
57.7% Percent Women

During the 2017-2018 academic year, there were 5,529 undergraduates at USD with 5,294 being full-time and 235 being part-time.

How Much Does University of San Diego Cost?

$34,139 Net Price
34% Take Out Loans
$27,500 Total Student Loans
The overall average net price of USD is $34,139. 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 USD

$0-30 K $30K-48K $48-75 $75-110K $110K +
$21,951 $22,334 $28,214 $32,095 $43,907

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 USD, 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 USD, approximately 34% of students took out student loans averaging $6,875 a year. That adds up to $27,500 over four years for those students.

The student loan default rate at USD is 1.9%. 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 University of San Diego.

How Much Money Do USD Graduates Make?

$74,816 Avg Salary of Grads
High Earnings Boost
Yearly salaries vary depending on what you major in, but on average, bachelor's degree recipients from USD make around $74,816 per year during the early years of their employment. That's great news for USD students since it is 76% more than the average college graduate's salary of $42,485 per year.

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See which majors at University of San Diego make the most money.

Location of University of San Diego

California State
5,294 Full-Time Undergraduates
Large City Campus Setting
University of San Diego is a private not-for-profit institution situated in San Diego, California. The location of the school is great for students who enjoy the amenities of city life.

Get more details about the location of University of San Diego.

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Contact details for USD are given below.

Contact Details
Address: 5998 Alcala Park, San Diego, CA 92110-2492
Phone: 619-260-4600
Website: www.sandiego.edu/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/usandiego
Twitter: http://twitter.com/uofsandiego

University of San Diego Majors

59 Majors With Completions
1,682 Undergraduate Degrees
1,578 Graduate Degrees
During the most recent year for which we have data, students from 59 majors graduated from University of San Diego. Of these students, 1,682 received undergraduate degrees and 1,578 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
Finance & Financial Management 178 $58,434
Business Administration & Management 138 $47,084
Applied Mathematics 127 NA
Marketing 127 $50,592
Communication & Media Studies 100 $39,639
Neurobiology & Neurosciences 95 $30,669
Accounting 79 $62,809
Political Science & Government 63 $32,411
Mechanical Engineering 60 $67,424
Economics 58 $55,050

Learn more about the majors offered at University of San Diego along with which ones have the highest average starting salaries.

Online Learning at USD

11% Take At Least One Class Online
11% 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, 993 students took at least one online class at University of San Diego. This is an increase from the 788 students who took online classes the previous year.

Year Took at Least One Online Class Took All Classes Online
2020-2021 993 993
2019-2020 788 788
2018-2019 723 711
2017-2018 736 713
2016-2017 619 580

Learn more about online learning at University of San Diego.

If you’re considering University of San Diego, here are some more schools you may be interested in knowing more about.

Curious on how these schools stack up against USD? 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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