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Charleston Southern University Data & Information Overview

122 awards Ranking Badges
Fair Price Value for Your Money
57% Acceptance Rate
Want the scoop on Charleston Southern University? We’ve put together a comprehensive report on the school that covers what majors CSU offers, how the school ranks, how diverse it is, and much more.
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How Well Is Charleston Southern University Ranked?

#1,348 Best Colleges in Nation
#20 Best Colleges in SC
Business Administration & Management Highest Ranked Major

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.

Charleston Southern University was awarded 122 badges in the 2024 rankings. The highest ranked major at the school is business administration & management.

Explore Best Ranked Schools for You

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Overall Quality

CSU landed the #1,348 spot in College Factual's 2024 ranking of best overall colleges in the United States. The higher ed experts analyzed 2,217 colleges and universities across the nation to determine this ranking. This is an improvement over the previous year, when CSU held the #1,458 spot on the Best Overall Colleges list.

Out of the 44 colleges in South Carolina, CSU is ranked at #20.

See all of the rankings for Charleston Southern University.

Is It Hard to Get Into CSU?

57% Acceptance Rate
65% Of Accepted Are Women
50% Submit SAT Scores

Acceptance Rate

The acceptance rate at Charleston Southern University is a competitive 57%, so make sure you take your application seriously when putting it together. Even leaving out a minor detail could be a reason to move you to the rejection pile.

Average Test Scores

About 50% of students accepted to CSU submitted their SAT scores. When looking at the 25th through the 75th percentile, SAT Evidence-Based Reading and Writing scores ranged between 500 and 620. Math scores were between 490 and 580.

SAT Reading and Writing Scores for Charleston Southern University  ( 500 to 620 )
200
800

SAT Math Scores for Charleston Southern University  ( 490 to 580 )
200
800
CSU received ACT scores from 39% of accepted students. When looking at the 25th through the 75th percentile, ACT Composite scores ranged between 18 and 23.

ACT Composite Scores for Charleston Southern University  ( 18 to 23 )
1
36

Learn more about Charleston Southern University admissions.

Charleston Southern University Faculty

13 to 1 Student to Faculty
66% Full Time Teachers

Student to Faculty Ratio

The student to faculty ratio is often used to estimate how much interaction there is between professors and their students at a college or university. At Charleston Southern University, this ratio is 13 to 1, which is on par with the national average of 15 to 1. That's not bad at all.

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 Charleston Southern University is 66%. This is higher than the national average of 47%.

Full-Time Faculty Percent  66 out of 100
0
100

Retention and Graduation Rates at Charleston Southern University

68% Freshmen Retention
28% On-Time Graduation Rate

Freshmen Retention Rate

The freshmen retention rate tells us what percentage of first-year, full-time students choose to continue on to their sophomore year at a particular school. The rate at Charleston Southern University is 68%, which is about average when compared to the national rate of 68%.

Freshmen Retention Rate  68 out of 100
0
100

Graduation Rate

The on-time graduation rate is the percent of first-time, full-time students who get their bachelor's degree with four years. At CSU this rate is 28%, which is about average when compared to the national rate of 33.3%.

On-Time Graduation Rate  28 out of 100
0
100

Find out more about the retention and graduation rates at Charleston Southern University.

Charleston Southern University Undergraduate Student Diversity

2,491 Full-Time Undergraduates
26.5% Racial-Ethnic Minorities*
64.8% Percent Women

During the 2017-2018 academic year, there were 2,720 undergraduates at CSU with 2,491 being full-time and 229 being part-time.

How Much Does Charleston Southern University Cost?

$17,671 Net Price
59% Take Out Loans
$28,668 Total Student Loans
The overall average net price of CSU is $17,671. 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 CSU

$0-30 K $30K-48K $48-75 $75-110K $110K +
$15,524 $15,230 $18,205 $18,881 $19,775

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 CSU, 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 CSU, approximately 59% of students took out student loans averaging $7,167 a year. That adds up to $28,668 over four years for those students.

The student loan default rate at CSU is 7.1%. Although this is lower than the national default rate of 10.1%, you'll still want to keep this in mind when taking out student loans.

Get more details about paying for Charleston Southern University.

How Much Money Do CSU Graduates Make?

$42,048 Avg Salary of Grads
Average Earnings Boost
Yearly salaries vary depending on what you major in, but on average, bachelor's degree recipients from CSU make around $42,048 per year during the early years of their employment. This is in the same neighborhood of the average college graduate's salary of $42,485 per year. However, certain majors may produce higher-paying graduates.

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See which majors at Charleston Southern University make the most money.

Location of Charleston Southern University

South Carolina State
2,491 Full-Time Undergraduates
Midsize City Campus Setting
Charleston Southern University is a private not-for-profit institution situated in Charleston, South Carolina. Charleston is a great location for students who prefer city over country life.

Get more details about the location of Charleston Southern University.

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Contact details for CSU are given below.

Contact Details
Address: 9200 University Blvd, Charleston, SC 29406-9121
Phone: 843-863-7000
Website: https://www.charlestonsouthern.edu/

Charleston Southern University Majors

54 Majors With Completions
535 Undergraduate Degrees
180 Graduate Degrees
During the most recent year for which we have data, students from 54 majors graduated from Charleston Southern University. Of these students, 535 received undergraduate degrees and 180 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
Nursing 77 $56,982
Business Administration & Management 50 $40,309
Teacher Education Grade Specific 41 $34,345
General Biology 38 $23,092
General Psychology 33 $26,162
Health & Physical Education 26 $25,028
Criminal Justice & Corrections 25 $35,190
Accounting 20 NA
Teacher Education Subject Specific 19 $35,270
Design & Applied Arts 18 $24,781

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

Online Learning at CSU

61% Take At Least One Class Online
14% 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, 2,045 students took at least one online class at Charleston Southern University. This is a decrease from the 2,922 students who took online classes the previous year.

Year Took at Least One Online Class Took All Classes Online
2020-2021 2,045 481
2019-2020 2,922 744
2018-2019 1,491 571
2017-2018 1,326 449
2016-2017 1,453 520

Learn more about online learning at Charleston Southern University.

If you’re considering Charleston Southern University, here are some more schools you may be interested in knowing more about.

Curious on how these schools stack up against CSU? 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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