by our College Data Analytics Team
College 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.
East Carolina University was awarded 115 badges in the 2025 rankings. The highest ranked major at the school is elementary education.
Explore the best ranked schools for the programs you are most interested in.
According to College Factual's 2025 analysis, ECU is ranked #275 out of 2,152 schools in the nation that were analyzed for overall quality. This puts it in the top 20% of all schools in the nation. This is an improvement over the previous year, when ECU held the #414 spot on the Best Overall Colleges list.
Out of the 93 colleges in North Carolina, ECU is ranked at #7.
The acceptance rate at East Carolina University is 92%, which is higher than many other schools to which you may be applying. But don't think getting into ECU 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.
With a student to faculty ratio of 18 to 1, East Carolina 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 East Carolina University is 76%. This is higher than the national average of 47%.
The freshmen retention rate of 80% tells us that most first-year, full-time students like East Carolina University 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.
Students are considered to have graduated on time if they finish their studies within four years. At ECU the on-time graduation rate of first-time, full-time students is 42%. That is great when compared to the national average of 33.3%
Find out more about the retention and graduation rates at East Carolina University.
During the 2017-2018 academic year, there were 23,056 undergraduates at ECU with 18,886 being full-time and 4,170 being part-time.
| $0-30 K | $30K-48K | $48-75 | $75-110K | $110K + |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $11,494 | $12,880 | $17,577 | $21,640 | $22,499 |
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 ECU, 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 ECU, approximately 57% of students took out student loans averaging $7,654 a year. That adds up to $30,616 over four years for those students.
See which majors at East Carolina University make the most money.
Get more details about the location of East Carolina University.
Contact details for ECU are given below.
| Contact Details | |
|---|---|
| Address: | East 5Th Street, Greenville, NC 27858-4353 |
| Phone: | 252-328-6131 |
| Website: | https://www.ecu.edu/ |
| Most Popular Majors | Bachelor’s Degrees | Average Salary of Graduates |
|---|---|---|
| Business Administration & Management | 637 | $45,497 |
| Nursing | 568 | $72,051 |
| Public Health | 348 | $35,628 |
| Teacher Education Grade Specific | 270 | $42,690 |
| General Psychology | 264 | $30,086 |
| Marketing | 257 | $45,870 |
| Communication & Media Studies | 255 | $37,813 |
| General Biology | 224 | $38,992 |
| Criminal Justice & Corrections | 210 | $36,374 |
| Industrial Production Technology | 201 | $63,324 |
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, 19,428 students took at least one online class at East Carolina University. This is a decrease from the 20,740 students who took online classes the previous year.
| Year | Took at Least One Online Class | Took All Classes Online |
|---|---|---|
| 2022-2023 | 19,428 | 7,807 |
| 2021-2022 | 20,740 | 8,218 |
| 2020-2021 | 26,733 | 10,537 |
| 2018-2019 | 12,960 | 6,812 |
Learn more about online learning at East Carolina University.
If you’re considering East Carolina University, here are some more schools you may be interested in knowing more about.
Curious on how these schools stack up against ECU? 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.