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Cuesta College Data & Information Overview

12 awards Ranking Badges
Fair Price Value for Your Money
Get the facts about Cuesta College. Learn how it ranks, what majors it offers, how diverse it is, and much more. Want to know more about a specific stat? Just click on its tile, and you’ll go to a page that goes more in-depth on that subject. You can also use the links below to go directly to any section on this page.

How Well Is Cuesta College Ranked?

#977 Best Colleges in Nation
#112 Best Colleges in CA
Health Sciences & Services Highest Ranked Major

2025 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.

Cuesta College was awarded 12 badges in the 2025 rankings. The highest ranked major at the school is health sciences & services.

Explore Best Ranked Schools for You

Explore the best ranked schools for the programs you are most interested in.

Overall Quality

College Factual ranked Cuesta College as #977 out of 2,152 colleges and universities in the country on its 2025 Best Colleges list.

Cuesta College is also ranked #112 out of 161 schools in California.

See all of the rankings for Cuesta College.

Is It Hard to Get Into Cuesta College?

Open Admissions Policy

Acceptance Rate

As long as you meet basic requirements, you should not have any trouble getting into Cuesta College since the school has an open admissions policy. Still, be sure to submit any requested materials and that your application is completed in full.

Learn more about Cuesta College admissions.

Cuesta College Faculty

27 to 1 Student to Faculty
35% 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 Cuesta College, this rate is 27 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 Cuesta College is 35%. This is lower than the national average of 47%.

Full-Time Faculty Percent  35 out of 100
0
100

Retention and Graduation Rates at Cuesta College

68% Freshmen Retention

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 Cuesta College is 68%, which is about average when compared to the national rate of 68%.

Freshmen Retention Rate  68 out of 100
0
100

Find out more about the retention and graduation rates at Cuesta College.

Cuesta College Undergraduate Student Diversity

2,987 Full-Time Undergraduates
43.5% Racial-Ethnic Minorities*
53.9% Percent Women

During the 2017-2018 academic year, there were 10,093 undergraduates at Cuesta College with 2,987 being full-time and 7,106 being part-time.

How Much Does Cuesta College Cost?

$10,149 Net Price
3% Take Out Loans
$16,768 Total Student Loans
The overall average net price of Cuesta College is $10,149. 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 Cuesta College

$0-30 K$30K-48K$48-75$75-110K$110K +
$9,435$8,117$11,860$14,165$16,585

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 Cuesta College, 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 Cuesta College, approximately 3% of students took out student loans averaging $4,192 a year. That adds up to $16,768 over four years for those students.

Get more details about paying for Cuesta College.

How Much Money Do Cuesta College Graduates Make?

$46,047 Avg Salary of Grads
High Earnings Boost
Although some majors pay more than others, students who graduate from Cuesta College with a bachelor's degree go on to jobs where they make an average salary of $46,047 in their early years. This is good news for future Cuesta College graduates since it is 6% more than the average college graduate's salary of $49,219 per year.

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See which majors at Cuesta College make the most money.

Location of Cuesta College

California State
2,987 Full-Time Undergraduates
Rural Campus Setting
Cuesta College is a public institution situated in San Luis Obispo, California. The rural area surrounding the school is great for students who prefer living in a country setting.

Get more details about the location of Cuesta College.

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Contact details for Cuesta College are given below.

Contact Details
Address:Highway 1, San Luis Obispo, CA 93403-8106
Phone:805-546-3100
Website:https://www.cuesta.edu/

Cuesta College Majors

78 Majors With Completions
9,141 Undergraduate Degrees
9,178 Graduate Degrees
During the most recent year for which we have data, students from 78 majors graduated from Cuesta College. Of these students, 9,141 received undergraduate degrees and 9,178 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 MajorsBachelor’s DegreesAverage Salary of Graduates
Liberal Arts General Studies2,518NA
General Business/Commerce243NA
Human Development & Family Studies192NA
Health Sciences & Services176NA
Allied Health Professions127NA
General Psychology123NA
General Education98NA
Economics77NA
Mental & Social Health Services72NA
Criminal Justice & Corrections50NA

Learn more about the majors offered at Cuesta College along with which ones have the highest average starting salaries.

Online Learning at Cuesta College

63% Take At Least One Class Online
33% 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 2022-2023, 6,285 students took at least one online class at Cuesta College. This is a decrease from the 7,247 students who took online classes the previous year.

YearTook at Least One Online ClassTook All Classes Online
2022-20236,2853,285
2021-20227,2474,999
2020-20219,6918,486
2018-20193,4741,375

Learn more about online learning at Cuesta College.

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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