Athens State University's Student to Faculty Ratio & Faculty Composition

What are the Student to Faculty Ratios Like at Athens State University?

Get a feel for student life at Athens State University by checking out the information on classes and faculty below.

Importance of Faculty Composition at Athens State University

The student to faculty ratio, as well as the number of full-time vs. part-time instructors, can give you an idea of how much attention you'll receive as an individual student at Athens State University.

Below Average Student to Faculty Ratio

Student to faculty ratio is one of the standard metrics used to gauge the number of teaching resources a school provides for its students. With 16 students for every one instructional faculty member, Athens State University has more students split among the same faculty when compared to the national average of 14. This metric might be an indicator that larger class sizes may be the norm, 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 Athens State University as primarily performing research or public service.

Average Use of Full-Time Teachers

At Athens State University, 43.0% of the teaching staff are full time, which is on average when compared nationally.

This School Hires an Average Amount of Adjuncts

57.0% of the teaching staff at Athens State University are part-time non-faculty or non-tenure track faculty. This use of adjuncts is on par with the national average of 51.0%.

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? An adjunct is a teacher that has either no contract or a very short term contract for a single semester or year. These teachers often instruct only a single class or two at a given college and may have teaching or non-teaching jobs elsewhere. The term 'adjunct' can be used very loosely in academia, and many schools classify these instructors differently. To account for this difference, 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 Athens State University does not offer graduate degree programs, this practice is not applicable to this college.