by our College Data Analytics TeamCollege 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.
Buena Vista University was awarded 6 badges in the 2025 rankings. The highest ranked major at the school is education/teaching of the gifted & talented.
Explore the best ranked schools for the programs you are most interested in.
BVU landed the #1,223 spot in College Factual's 2025 ranking of best overall colleges in the United States. The higher ed experts analyzed 2,152 colleges and universities across the nation to determine this ranking.
BVU also holds the #30 spot on the Best Colleges in Iowa ranking.
The acceptance rate at Buena Vista University is 77%. That's higher than the rate at many schools, but still low enough to be considered somewhat selective. If you want to get in, you'll need good grades and to be able to show that BVU is a good fit for you.
About 3% of students accepted to BVU submitted their SAT scores. When looking at the 25th through the 75th percentile, SAT Evidence-Based Reading and Writing scores ranged between 480 and 570. Math scores were between 450 and 560.
The student to faculty ratio at BVU is an impressive 12 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.
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 Buena Vista University is 25%. This is lower than the national average of 47%.
Buena Vista University has a freshmen retention rate of 76%. 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.
The on-time graduation rate for someone pursuing a bachelor's degree is typically four years. This rate at BVU for first-time, full-time students is 56%, which is better than the national average of 33.3%.
Find out more about the retention and graduation rates at Buena Vista University.
During the 2017-2018 academic year, there were 1,456 undergraduates at BVU with 1,230 being full-time and 226 being part-time.
| $0-30 K | $30K-48K | $48-75 | $75-110K | $110K + |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $13,155 | $14,412 | $16,957 | $20,878 | $22,491 |
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 BVU, see our tuition and fees and room and board pages.
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 BVU, approximately 76% of students took out student loans averaging $7,529 a year. That adds up to $30,116 over four years for those students.
See which majors at Buena Vista University make the most money.
Get more details about the location of Buena Vista University.
Contact details for BVU are given below.
| Contact Details | |
|---|---|
| Address: | 610 W 4Th St, Storm Lake, IA 50588 |
| Phone: | 712-749-2400 |
| Website: | https://www.bvu.edu/ |
| Most Popular Majors | Bachelor’s Degrees | Average Salary of Graduates |
|---|---|---|
| Business Administration & Management | 86 | $47,385 |
| Teacher Education Grade Specific | 85 | $42,834 |
| Human Services | 60 | NA |
| Student Counseling | 45 | NA |
| Curriculum & Instruction | 38 | NA |
| Accounting | 37 | $53,280 |
| General Psychology | 37 | $35,559 |
| General Business/Commerce | 26 | $48,810 |
| Finance & Financial Management | 25 | $52,226 |
| Special Education | 25 | NA |
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 2022-2023, 1,169 students took at least one online class at Buena Vista University. This is an increase from the 1,158 students who took online classes the previous year.
| Year | Took at Least One Online Class | Took All Classes Online |
|---|---|---|
| 2022-2023 | 1,169 | 978 |
| 2021-2022 | 1,158 | 1,025 |
| 2020-2021 | 1,151 | 1,003 |
| 2018-2019 | 987 | 902 |
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.