Black Hills State University Data & Information Overview

This overview covers the essential stats on Black Hills State University, including its rankings, majors, diversity, and more. Want to dig deeper into a particular stat? Just click on its tile and you’ll be taked to a more in-depth page on the figure. In addition, you can use the links below to quickly jump to any section on this page.

• Rankings
• Admission and Acceptance
• Faculty
• Retention and Graduation Rates
• Diversity
• Cost
• Student Debt
• Average Earnings
• Location
• Majors
• Online Learning

How Well Is Black Hills State University Ranked?

2023 Rankings

In its yearly rankings, College Factual analyzes over 2,000 colleges and universities to determine which ones are the best in a variety of categories, such as overall value, quality, diversity, which schools are the best for each major, and much more.

Black Hills State University was awarded 59 badges in the 2023 rankings.

Overall Quality

College Factual ranked BHSU as #1,583 out of 2,241 colleges and universities in the country on its 2023 Best Colleges list. This is an improvement over the previous year, when BHSU held the #1,762 spot on the Best Overall Colleges list.

BHSU is also ranked #12 out of 13 schools in South Dakota.

See all of the rankings for Black Hills State University.

Is It Hard to Get Into BHSU?

Acceptance Rate

With an acceptance rate of 97%, BHSU 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.

Average Test Scores

About 10% of students accepted to BHSU submitted their SAT scores. When looking at the 25th through the 75th percentile, SAT Evidence-Based Reading and Writing scores ranged between 555 and 615. Math scores were between 483 and 588.

BHSU received ACT scores from 78% of accepted students. When looking at the 25th through the 75th percentile, ACT Composite scores ranged between 18 and 24.

Learn more about Black Hills State University admissions.

Black Hills State University Faculty

Student to Faculty Ratio

The student to faculty ratio at Black Hills State University is about average at 16 to 1. This ratio is often used to gauge how many students might be in an average class and how much time professors will have to spend with their students on an individual level. The national average for this metric is 15 to 1.

Percent of Full-Time Faculty

When estimating how much access students will have to their teachers, some people like to look at what percentage of faculty members are full time. This is because part-time teachers may not have as much time to spend on campus as their full-time counterparts.

The full-time faculty percentage at Black Hills State University is 58%. This is higher than the national average of 47%.

Retention and Graduation Rates at Black Hills State University

Freshmen Retention Rate

The freshmen retention rate tells us what percentage of first-year, full-time students choose to continue on to their sophomore year at a particular school. The rate at Black Hills State University is 65%, which is about average when compared to the national rate of 68%.

Graduation Rate

The on-time graduation rate is the percent of first-time, full time students who obtain their bachelor's degree in four years or less. This rate is 14% for first-time, full-time students at BHSU, which is lower than the national rate of 33.3%.

Find out more about the retention and graduation rates at Black Hills State University.

Black Hills State University Undergraduate Student Diversity

During the 2017-2018 academic year, there were 3,413 undergraduates at BHSU with 1,794 being full-time and 1,619 being part-time.

How Much Does Black Hills State University Cost?

The overall average net price of BHSU is $16,961. 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 BHSU

$0-30 K	$30K-48K	$48-75	$75-110K	$110K +
$14,108	$14,928	$16,947	$18,637	$19,151

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 BHSU, see our tuition and fees and room and board pages.

Student Loan Debt

While almost two-thirds of students nationwide take out loans to pay for college, the percentage may be quite different for the school you plan on attending. At BHSU, approximately 65% of students took out student loans averaging $6,878 a year. That adds up to $27,512 over four years for those students.

The student loan default rate at BHSU is 8.6%. Although this is lower than the national default rate of 10.1%, you'll still want to keep this in mind when taking out student loans.

Get more details about paying for Black Hills State University.

How Much Money Do BHSU Graduates Make?

Yearly salaries vary depending on what you major in, but on average, bachelor's degree recipients from BHSU make around $39,963 per year during the early years of their employment. This is right on par with the average college graduate's salary of $42,485 per year. Also, graduates in your major field may make more.

See which majors at Black Hills State University make the most money.

Location of Black Hills State University

Black Hills State University is a public institution located in Spearfish, South Dakota. The charming, small-town atmosphere of Spearfish draws many to the area.

Get more details about the location of Black Hills State University.

Contact details for BHSU are given below.

	Contact Details
Address:	1200 University St, Spearfish, SD 57799-9500
Phone:	800-255-2478
Website:	www.bhsu.edu/
Facebook:	http://www.facebook.com/BlackHillsState
Twitter:	http://www.twitter.com/BlackHillsState

Black Hills State University Majors

During the most recent year for which we have data, students from 39 majors graduated from Black Hills State University. Of these students, 474 received undergraduate degrees and 72 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
Business Administration & Management	90	$36,641
Teacher Education Grade Specific	59	$36,857
Health & Physical Education	33	$21,080
General Psychology	30	$28,162
Community Organization & Advocacy	20	$29,934
History	20	NA
General Biology	20	$25,935
Liberal Arts General Studies	17	NA
Sociology	15	$29,825
General English Literature	15	NA

Learn more about the majors offered at Black Hills State University along with which ones have the highest average starting salaries.

Online Learning at BHSU

Online courses area a great option for busy, working students as well as for those who have scheduling conflicts and want to study on their own time. As time goes by, expect to see more and more online learning options become available.

In 2019-2020, 2,320 students took at least one online class at Black Hills State University. This is an increase from the 2,249 students who took online classes the previous year.

Year	Took at Least One Online Class	Took All Classes Online
2019-2020	2,320	1,303
2018-2019	2,249	1,281
2017-2018	2,017	1,106
2016-2017	2,099	1,076
2015-2016	1,872	971

Learn more about online learning at Black Hills State University.

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

• National Center for Education Statistics
• College Scorecard
• Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System
• Image Credit: By Virginia State Parks staff under License

More about our data sources and methodologies.