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.
California Lutheran University was awarded 3 badges in the 2025 rankings. The highest ranked major at the school is general business administration and management.
Explore the best ranked schools for the programs you are most interested in.
CLU is ranked #701 out of 2,152 schools in the nation for overall quality on College Factual's 2025 Best Colleges list.
CLU is also ranked #88 out of 161 schools in California.
The acceptance rate at California Lutheran University is 87%, which is higher than many other schools to which you may be applying. But don't think getting into CLU is a sure thing. The admissions staff is still going to review your application to see if you are a good fit for the school.
About 14% of students accepted to CLU submitted their SAT scores. When looking at the 25th through the 75th percentile, SAT Evidence-Based Reading and Writing scores ranged between 580 and 660. Math scores were between 570 and 660.
With a student to faculty ratio of 14 to 1, California Lutheran University is about average in this regard as the nationwide rate is 15 to 1. While this does not translate directly to class size, it's a good indicator of how much time professors will have to spend with their students on a one-on-one basis.
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 California Lutheran University is 100%. This is higher than the national average of 47%.
California Lutheran University has a freshmen retention rate of 81%. 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.
Students are considered to have graduated on time if they finish their studies within four years. At CLU the on-time graduation rate of first-time, full-time students is 66%. That is great when compared to the national average of 33.3%
Find out more about the retention and graduation rates at California Lutheran University.
During the 2017-2018 academic year, there were 2,804 undergraduates at CLU with 2,714 being full-time and 90 being part-time.
| $0-30 K | $30K-48K | $48-75 | $75-110K | $110K + |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $20,047 | $21,172 | $22,688 | $27,900 | $37,492 |
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 CLU, 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 CLU, approximately 55% of students took out student loans averaging $7,577 a year. That adds up to $30,308 over four years for those students.
Get more details about paying for California Lutheran University.
See which majors at California Lutheran University make the most money.
Get more details about the location of California Lutheran University.
Contact details for CLU are given below.
| Contact Details | |
|---|---|
| Address: | 60 W Olsen Rd, Thousand Oaks, CA 91360-2787 |
| Phone: | 805-492-2411 |
| Website: | www.callutheran.edu/ |
| Most Popular Majors | Bachelor’s Degrees | Average Salary of Graduates |
|---|---|---|
| Business Administration & Management | 207 | $55,234 |
| General Psychology | 116 | $30,918 |
| Health & Physical Education | 60 | $33,818 |
| General Biology | 59 | $32,894 |
| Student Counseling | 53 | NA |
| Communication & Media Studies | 52 | $37,249 |
| Finance & Financial Management | 47 | NA |
| General Education | 41 | NA |
| Criminology | 38 | $31,963 |
| Educational Administration | 37 | 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, 421 students took at least one online class at California Lutheran University. This is a decrease from the 558 students who took online classes the previous year.
| Year | Took at Least One Online Class | Took All Classes Online |
|---|---|---|
| 2022-2023 | 421 | 157 |
| 2021-2022 | 558 | 181 |
| 2020-2021 | 4,023 | 3,730 |
| 2018-2019 | 463 | 129 |
Learn more about online learning at California Lutheran University.
If you’re considering California Lutheran University, here are some more schools you may be interested in knowing more about.
Curious on how these schools stack up against CLU? Pit them head to head with College Combat, our free interactive tool that lets you compare college on the features that matter most to you!
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.