The American River College Student to Faculty Ratio & Faculty Composition

Does American River College have a good student to faculty ratio?

Check out the information on class structures and faculty to get a feel for the academic life at American River College.

Student to Faculty Ratio is Well Below Average

American River College, with 27 students for every instructional faculty member, ranks among the lowest in comparison to the national average of 15:1. This ratio indicates that the number of students split between the same faculty is much higher than normal, and could mean students will experience larger class sizes and fewer opportunities to connect with professors, especially in introductory courses.

Breakdown of Instructional Staff

The following table shows all the employees the school considers instructional, and therefore, part of the above student-to-faculty ratio. These include both those employees designated as either "primarily instructional" or as "instructional combined with research/public service". It does not include employees that have been identified by American River College as primarily performing research or public service.

Number of Full-Time Teachers is Average

At American River College, 39.0% of the teaching staff are full time, which is on average when compared nationally.

Average Reliance on Part-Time Teachers

61.0% of the teaching staff at American River College are part-time non-faculty or non-tenure track faculty. This use of adjuncts is on par with the national average of 52.4%.

Colleges often use part-time professors and adjuncts to teach courses, rather than full-time faculty. This hiring practice is primarily a way to save money amid increasingly tight budgets. However, it is a controversial practice with strong views on either side. We encourage you to understand this topic more deeply, and how the colleges you are interested in approach faculty hiring. It's your education and your money on the line. Make sure you know what you are getting for it.

Additional Information

• What is an Adjunct?

  On this page, we refer to an adjunct teacher or a part-time teacher interchangeably, although each school may have a slightly different definition. In short, an adjunct professor can either work full-time or part-time during a school semester, but they have no contract or a contract that lasts only a short amount of time. To come up with the numbers for this page, we use the total number of part-time non-faculty and non-tenure track faculty to represent the count of adjuncts for the college or university.

No Graduate Programs

Many U.S. colleges utilize enrolled graduate assistants to help instructional faculty, however, as American River College does not offer graduate degree programs, this practice is not applicable to this college.