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California State University - Northridge Data & Information Overview

427 awards Ranking Badges
Great Price Value for Your Money
88% Acceptance Rate
Find out more about how California State University - Northridge ranks, how diverse it is, what majors it offers, and other essential facts below.
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How Well Is California State University - Northridge Ranked?

#299 Best Colleges in Nation
#49 Best Colleges in CA
Liberal Arts / Sciences & Humanities Highest Ranked Major
Quality Badge

2024 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.

California State University - Northridge was awarded 427 badges in the 2024 rankings. The highest ranked major at the school is liberal arts / sciences & humanities.

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Overall Quality

CSUN is ranked #299 out of 2,217 schools in the nation for overall quality on College Factual's 2024 Best Colleges list. This puts it in the top 15% of all schools in the nation. This is an improvement over the previous year, when CSUN held the #387 spot on the Best Overall Colleges list.

CSUN is also ranked #49 out of 168 schools in California.

See all of the rankings for California State University - Northridge.

Is It Hard to Get Into CSUN?

88% Acceptance Rate
57% Of Accepted Are Women

Acceptance Rate

With an acceptance rate of 88%, CSUN 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.

Learn more about California State University - Northridge admissions.

California State University - Northridge Faculty

26 to 1 Student to Faculty
47% Full Time Teachers

Student to Faculty Ratio

The student to faculty ratio is often used as a measure to gauge how much access students will have to their professors - the lower the number, the better. At California State University - Northridge, this rate is 26 to 1, which is high when compared to the national average of 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 California State University - Northridge is 47%. This is comparable to the national average of 47%.

Full-Time Faculty Percent  47 out of 100
0
100

Retention and Graduation Rates at California State University - Northridge

82% Freshmen Retention
15% On-Time Graduation Rate

Freshmen Retention Rate

The freshmen retention rate of 82% tells us that most first-year, full-time students like California State University - Northridge 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.

Freshmen Retention Rate  82 out of 100
0
100

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 15% for first-time, full-time students at CSUN, which is lower than the national rate of 33.3%.

On-Time Graduation Rate  15 out of 100
0
100

Find out more about the retention and graduation rates at California State University - Northridge.

California State University - Northridge Undergraduate Student Diversity

29,191 Full-Time Undergraduates
70.5% Racial-Ethnic Minorities*
56.3% Percent Women

During the 2017-2018 academic year, there were 34,916 undergraduates at CSUN with 29,191 being full-time and 5,725 being part-time.

How Much Does California State University - Northridge Cost?

$8,523 Net Price
15% Take Out Loans
$20,536 Total Student Loans
The overall average net price of CSUN is $8,523. 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 CSUN

$0-30 K $30K-48K $48-75 $75-110K $110K +
$6,266 $7,103 $10,780 $15,380 $18,714

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 CSUN, 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 CSUN, approximately 15% of students took out student loans averaging $5,134 a year. That adds up to $20,536 over four years for those students.

The student loan default rate at CSUN is 3.7%. 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 California State University - Northridge.

How Much Money Do CSUN Graduates Make?

$53,360 Avg Salary of Grads
High Earnings Boost
Although some majors pay more than others, students who graduate from CSUN with a bachelor's degree go on to jobs where they make an average salary of $53,360 in their early years. This is good news for future CSUN graduates since it is 26% more than the average college graduate's salary of $42,485 per year.

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See which majors at California State University - Northridge make the most money.

Location of California State University - Northridge

California State
29,191 Full-Time Undergraduates
Large City Campus Setting
California State University - Northridge is a public institution located in Northridge, California. The location of CSUN is great for students who prefer living in an urban area.

Get more details about the location of California State University - Northridge.

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Contact details for CSUN are given below.

Contact Details
Address: 18111 Nordhoff St, Northridge, CA 91330
Phone: 818-677-1200
Website: https://www.csun.edu/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Northridge-CA/California-State-University-Northridge/6684699242
Twitter: http://twitter.com/csunorthridge

California State University - Northridge Majors

73 Majors With Completions
9,572 Undergraduate Degrees
1,650 Graduate Degrees
During the most recent year for which we have data, students from 73 majors graduated from California State University - Northridge. Of these students, 9,572 received undergraduate degrees and 1,650 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
General Psychology 864 $27,524
Business Administration & Management 806 $39,961
Sociology 492 $29,883
Health & Physical Education 458 $26,612
Radio, Television & Digital Communication 427 $25,896
Marketing 406 $37,432
Public Health 401 $34,066
Teacher Education Grade Specific 400 NA
Finance & Financial Management 399 $43,894
Communication & Media Studies 336 $33,193

Learn more about the majors offered at California State University - Northridge along with which ones have the highest average starting salaries.

Online Learning at CSUN

95% Take At Least One Class Online
71% Take All Classes Online

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 2020-2021, 38,276 students took at least one online class at California State University - Northridge. This is a decrease from the 39,376 students who took online classes the previous year.

Year Took at Least One Online Class Took All Classes Online
2020-2021 38,276 28,617
2019-2020 39,376 34,499
2018-2019 14,475 1,506
2017-2018 20,755 1,304
2016-2017 20,127 1,112

Learn more about online learning at California State University - Northridge.

If you’re considering California State University - Northridge, here are some more schools you may be interested in knowing more about.

Curious on how these schools stack up against CSUN? 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!

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

More about our data sources and methodologies.

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