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 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 Buena Vista University Ranked?

2022 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 101 badges in the 2022 rankings. The highest ranked major at the school is education/teaching of the gifted and talented.

Overall Quality

BVU is ranked #1,015 out of 2,576 schools in the nation for overall quality on College Factual's 2022 Best Colleges list. This is an improvement over the previous year, when BVU held the #1,103 spot on the Best Overall Colleges list.

Out of the 45 colleges in Iowa, BVU is ranked at #18.

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 56%, 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.

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 10 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 36%. This is lower than the national average of 47%.

Retention and Graduation Rates at Buena Vista University

Freshmen Retention Rate

Buena Vista University has a freshmen retention rate of 74%. 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.

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 46%, which is better than the national average of 33.3%.

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

Buena Vista University Undergraduate Student Diversity

During the 2017-2018 academic year, there were 1,456 undergraduates at BVU with 1,230 being full-time and 226 being part-time.

How Much Does Buena Vista University Cost?

The overall average net price of BVU is $17,544. 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 +
$14,210	$12,773	$15,292	$18,120	$24,816

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 81% of students took out student loans averaging $7,364 a year. That adds up to $29,456 over four years for those students.

The student loan default rate at BVU is 5.9%. 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 50 majors graduated from Buena Vista University. Of these students, 549 received undergraduate degrees and 104 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	72	$31,650
General Psychology	71	$30,554
Teacher Education Grade Specific	58	$36,647
Business Administration & Management	50	$38,953
Accounting	36	$41,789
Finance & Financial Management	30	$38,289
Human Resource Management	26	$40,089
Health & Physical Education	18	$37,208
Teacher Education Subject Specific	18	$40,621
Criminal Justice & Corrections	18	$33,993

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 2019-2020, 1,151 students took at least one online class at Buena Vista University. This is an increase from the 997 students who took online classes the previous year.

Year	Took at Least One Online Class	Took All Classes Online
2019-2020	1,151	1,003
2018-2019	997	893
2017-2018	987	902
2016-2017	1,058	876
2015-2016	1,137	958

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.