Grand Valley State University Data & Information Overview

This overview covers the essential stats on Grand Valley State University, including its rankings, majors, diversity, and more. All you need to do to learn more about a stat is click on its tile, and you'll be taken to another page that analyzes that data more closely. Also, you can use the links below to scroll to any section of this page.

• Rankings
• Admission and Acceptance
• Faculty
• Retention and Graduation Rates
• Diversity
• Cost
• Student Debt
• Average Earnings
• Location
• Majors
• Online Learning
• Related Schools

How Well Is Grand Valley State University Ranked?

2021 Rankings

College Factual recognizes the best colleges and universities in its annual rankings. These rankings include categories for best overall colleges, best colleges for each major, best value schools, and much more.

Grand Valley State University was awarded 154 badges in the 2021 rankings. The highest ranked major at the school is business, management and marketing.

Overall Quality

College Factual ranked GVSU as #377 out of 1,715 colleges and universities in the country on its 2021 Best Colleges list.

Out of the 42 colleges in Michigan, GVSU is ranked at #10.

See all of the rankings for Grand Valley State University.

Is It Hard to Get Into GVSU?

Acceptance Rate

The acceptance rate at Grand Valley State University is 81%. That's higher than the rate at many schools, but still low enough to be considered somewhat selective. If you want to get in, you'll need good grades and to be able to show that GVSU is a good fit for you.

Average Test Scores

About 76% of students accepted to GVSU submitted their SAT scores. When looking at the 25th through the 75th percentile, SAT Evidence-Based Reading and Writing scores ranged between 530 and 620. Math scores were between 520 and 610.

GVSU received ACT scores from 54% of accepted students. When looking at the 25th through the 75th percentile, ACT Composite scores ranged between 21 and 26.

Learn more about Grand Valley State University admissions.

Grand Valley State University Faculty

Student to Faculty Ratio

With a student to faculty ratio of 16 to 1, Grand Valley State 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.

Percent of Full-Time Faculty

In addition to the student to faculty ratio, some people look at what percentage of faculty members are full-time as a sign of how much time professors will be able to spend with their students. This is because part-time teachers may not be be on campus as much as their full-time counterparts.

The full-time faculty percentage at Grand Valley State University is 67%. This is higher than the national average of 47%.

Retention and Graduation Rates at Grand Valley State University

Freshmen Retention Rate

The freshmen retention rate of 83% tells us that most first-year, full-time students like Grand Valley State 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.

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 GVSU this rate is 37%, which is about average when compared to the national rate of 33.3%.

Find out more about the retention and graduation rates at Grand Valley State University.

Average Overall Diversity at GVSU

During the 2017-2018 academic year, there were 21,680 undergraduates at GVSU with 19,233 being full-time and 2,447 being part-time.

GVSU Diversity Score

When calculating the overall diversity score for a school, College Factual does not just look at the percentage of women and racial-ethnic minorities*. Instead, it looks to see how good of a mixture a school has with regard to gender, ethnicity, age, and location of origin.

GVSU scored 50.81 out of 100 for overall diversity. This is about average when compared to other colleges and universities in the United States.

Get more detailed information on diversity and student demographics at Grand Valley State University.

How Much Does Grand Valley State University Cost?

The overall average net price of GVSU is $18,019. 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 GVSU

$0-30 K	$30K-48K	$48-75	$75-110K	$110K +
$12,703	$13,959	$16,219	$20,038	$21,987

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 GVSU, 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 GVSU, approximately 62% of students took out student loans averaging $6,584 a year. That adds up to $26,336 over four years for those students.

The student loan default rate at GVSU is 3.8%. 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 Grand Valley State University.

How Much Money Do GVSU Graduates Make?

Yearly salaries vary depending on what you major in, but on average, bachelor's degree recipients from GVSU make around $42,800 per year during the early years of their employment. This is right on par with the average college graduate's salary of $39,802 per year. Also, graduates in your major field may make more.

See which majors at Grand Valley State University make the most money.

Location of Grand Valley State University

Grand Valley State University is a public institution located in Allendale, Michigan. Allendale is considered a suburb and offers tranquility and safety near the excitement of a city center.

Get more details about the location of Grand Valley State University.

Contact details for GVSU are given below.

	Contact Details
Address:	1 Campus Dr, Allendale, MI 49401-9403
Phone:	616-331-2020
Website:	www.gvsu.edu
Facebook:	http://www.facebook.com/grandvalley
Twitter:	http://www.twitter.com/gvsu

Grand Valley State University Majors

During the most recent year for which we have data, students from 89 majors graduated from Grand Valley State University. Of these students, 5,421 received undergraduate degrees and 1,102 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
Marketing	341	$41,800
Health & Physical Education	292	NA
Finance & Financial Management	281	$45,700
General Psychology	269	$28,000
Other Health Professions	258	$28,900
General Education	232	$34,800
Health/Medical Prep Programs	230	$28,900
Nursing	207	$56,800
Management Sciences & Quantitative Methods	174	$43,000
Public Relations & Advertising	160	$34,800

Learn more about the majors offered at Grand Valley State University along with which ones have the highest average starting salaries.

Online Learning at GVSU

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 2017-2018, 2,406 students took at least one online class at Grand Valley State University. This is an increase from the 1,786 students who took online classes the previous year.

Year	Took at Least One Online Class	Took All Classes Online
2017-2018	2,406	291
2016-2017	1,786	347
2015-2016	1,474	290
2014-2015	1,269	261
2013-2014	1,121	282

Learn more about online learning at Grand Valley State University.

Related Schools

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

• Eastern Michigan University
• James Madison University
• Saint Cloud State University
• University of Michigan - Flint
• University of South Florida - Main Campus

Curious on how these schools stack up against GVSU? 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 Demhem under License

More about our data sources and methodologies.