Buena Vista University Data & Information Overview

If you want to know more about Buena Vista University, such as what majors does it offer, how diverse it is, how well it ranks, and more, this is your one-stop resource. Want to know more about a specific stat? Just click on its tile, and you'll go to a page that goes more in-depth on that subject. You can also use the links below to go directly 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 Buena Vista University Ranked?

2021 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.

Buena Vista University was awarded 14 badges in the 2021 rankings. The highest ranked major at the school is business, management and marketing.

Overall Quality

College Factual ranked BVU as #1,103 out of 1,715 colleges and universities in the country on its 2021 Best Colleges list.

Out of the 31 colleges in Iowa, BVU is ranked at #24.

See all of the rankings for Buena Vista University.

Is It Hard to Get Into BVU?

Acceptance Rate

Buena Vista University has an acceptance rate of 64%, which means the school is serious about who it admits. Take your time in putting together a strong application that highlights why you are a good fit for BVU.

Average Test Scores

About 12% 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 498 and 573. Math scores were between 488 and 570.

BVU received ACT scores from 88% of accepted students. When looking at the 25th through the 75th percentile, ACT Composite scores ranged between 19 and 24.

Learn more about Buena Vista University admissions.

Buena Vista University Faculty

Student to Faculty Ratio

The student to faculty ratio is often used to measure the number of teaching resources that a college or university offers its students. The national average for this metric is 15 to 1, but at BVU it is much better at 9 to 1. That's good news for students who want to interact more on a personal level with their teachers.

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 Buena Vista University is 37%. This is lower than the national average of 47%.

Retention and Graduation Rates at Buena Vista University

Freshmen Retention Rate

The freshmen retention rate of 77% tells us that most first-year, full-time students like Buena Vista University enough to come back for another year. This is a fair bit higher than the national average of 68%. That's certainly something to check off in the good column about the school.

Graduation Rate

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 43%, which is better than the national average of 33.3%.

Find out more about the retention and graduation rates at Buena Vista University.

Average Overall Diversity at BVU

During the 2017-2018 academic year, there were 1,478 undergraduates at BVU with 1,257 being full-time and 221 being part-time.

BVU Diversity Score

When calculating the overall diversity score for a school, College Factual does not just look at the percentage of women and racial-ethnic minorities*. Instead, it looks to see how good of a mixture a school has with regard to gender, ethnicity, age, and location of origin.

BVU scored 46.83 out of 100 for overall diversity. This is about average when compared to other colleges and universities in the United States.

Get more detailed information on diversity and student demographics at Buena Vista University.

How Much Does Buena Vista University Cost?

The overall average net price of BVU is $20,087. 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 BVU

$0-30 K	$30K-48K	$48-75	$75-110K	$110K +
$15,313	$15,563	$18,506	$22,124	$26,302

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.

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 BVU, approximately 85% of students took out student loans averaging $7,942 a year. That adds up to $31,768 over four years for those students.

The student loan default rate at BVU is 5.4%. 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 Buena Vista University.

How Much Money Do BVU Graduates Make?

Although some majors pay more than others, students who graduate from BVU with a bachelor's degree go on to jobs where they make an average salary of $40,000 in their early years. This is in the same neighborhood of the average college graduate's salary of $39,802 per year. However, certain majors may produce higher-paying graduates.

See which majors at Buena Vista University make the most money.

Location of Buena Vista University

Buena Vista University is a private not-for-profit institution located in Storm Lake, Iowa. Storm Lake is a good match for students who enjoy small-town life.

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
Facebook:	http://www.facebook.com/buenavistauniversity
Twitter:	http://twitter.com/buenavistauniv

Buena Vista University Majors

During the most recent year for which we have data, students from 55 majors graduated from Buena Vista University. Of these students, 643 received undergraduate degrees and 74 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
Other Multi/Interdisciplinary Studies	100	$28,000
General Psychology	70	$25,500
Business Administration & Management	62	$39,700
Teacher Education Grade Specific	58	$36,800
Accounting	44	$45,000
Human Resource Management	39	$39,300
Finance & Financial Management	38	NA
Marketing	25	NA
Criminal Justice & Corrections	23	$33,200
Teacher Education Subject Specific	22	$37,700

Learn more about the majors offered at Buena Vista University along with which ones have the highest average starting salaries.

Online Learning at BVU

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 2017-2018, 987 students took at least one online class at Buena Vista University. This is a decrease from the 1,058 students who took online classes the previous year.

Year	Took at Least One Online Class	Took All Classes Online
2017-2018	987	902
2016-2017	1,058	876
2015-2016	1,137	958
2014-2015	1,012	749
2013-2014	866	617

Learn more about online learning at Buena Vista 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 Ryan Harder under License

More about our data sources and methodologies.