Charleston Southern University Data & Information Overview
This overview covers the essential stats on Charleston Southern University, including its rankings, majors, diversity, and more. If you’re interested in learning more about a particular stat, just click on its tile to go to a new page that covers the topic more in-depth. Also, you can jump to any section of this page by clicking one of the links below.- Rankings
- Admission and Acceptance
- Faculty
- Retention and Graduation Rates
- Diversity
- Cost
- Student Debt
- Average Earnings
- Location
- Majors
- Online Learning
- Related Schools
How Well Is Charleston Southern University Ranked?
2023 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 52 badges in the 2023 rankings.
Overall Quality
According to College Factual's 2023 analysis, CSU is ranked #1,458 out of 2,241 schools in the nation that were analyzed for overall quality. This is an improvement over the previous year, when CSU held the #1,919 spot on the Best Overall Colleges list.
CSU is also ranked #21 out of 44 schools in South Carolina.
See all of the rankings for Charleston Southern University.
Is It Hard to Get Into CSU?
Acceptance Rate
Charleston Southern University has an acceptance rate of 54%, 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 CSU.
Average Test Scores
About 73% 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 600. Math scores were between 490 and 570.
Learn more about Charleston Southern University admissions.
Charleston Southern University Faculty
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%.
Retention and Graduation Rates at Charleston Southern University
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 70%, which is about average when compared to the national rate of 68%.
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 29%, which is about average when compared to the national rate of 33.3%.
Find out more about the retention and graduation rates at Charleston Southern University.
Charleston Southern University Undergraduate Student Diversity
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?
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 61% of students took out student loans averaging $6,664 a year. That adds up to $26,656 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?
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.
See which majors at Charleston Southern University make the most money.
Location of Charleston Southern University
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.

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/ |
Facebook: | https://www.facebook.com/charlestonsouthernuniversity |
Twitter: | https://twitter.com/csuniv |
Charleston Southern University Majors
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 |
Online Learning at CSU
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 2019-2020, 2,922 students took at least one online class at Charleston Southern University. This is an increase from the 1,491 students who took online classes the previous year.
Year | Took at Least One Online Class | Took All Classes Online |
---|---|---|
2019-2020 | 2,922 | 744 |
2018-2019 | 1,491 | 571 |
2017-2018 | 1,326 | 449 |
2016-2017 | 1,453 | 520 |
2015-2016 | 1,022 | 462 |
Learn more about online learning at Charleston Southern University.
Find Out More About Charleston Southern University
Related Schools
If you’re considering Charleston Southern University, here are some more schools you may be interested in knowing more about.
- Albright College
- Campbellsville University
- Gardner - Webb University
- McKendree University
- University of Mobile
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
- National Center for Education Statistics
- College Scorecard
- Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System
- Image Credit: By CharlestonSouthern under License
More about our data sources and methodologies.