College Factual  by our College Data Analytics Team
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Grinnell College Data & Information Overview

7 awards Ranking Badges
Great Price Value for Your Money
11% Acceptance Rate
This overview covers the essential stats on Grinnell College, including its rankings, majors, diversity, and more.
Want to dig deeper into a particular stat? Just click on its tile and you’ll be taked to a more in-depth page on the figure. In addition, you can use the links below to quickly jump to any section on this page.

How Well Is Grinnell College Ranked?

#318 Best Colleges in Nation
#4 Best Colleges in IA
Social Sciences Highest Ranked Major
Quality Badge

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.

Grinnell College was awarded 7 badges in the 2025 rankings. The highest ranked major at the school is social sciences.

Explore Best Ranked Schools for You

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

Overall Quality

Grinnell is ranked #318 out of 2,152 schools in the nation for overall quality on College Factual's 2025 Best Colleges list. This puts it in the top 20% of all schools in the nation.

Grinnell is also ranked #4 out of 37 schools in Iowa.

See all of the rankings for Grinnell College.

Is It Hard to Get Into Grinnell?

11% Acceptance Rate
57% Of Accepted Are Women
28% Submit SAT Scores

Acceptance Rate

Grinnell College has a very low acceptance rate of 11%, making it one of the most selective out of all the colleges and universities in the nation. It's probably a good idea to apply to other schools in addition to Grinnell just in case you don't make the cut.

Average Test Scores

About 28% of students accepted to Grinnell submitted their SAT scores. When looking at the 25th through the 75th percentile, SAT Evidence-Based Reading and Writing scores ranged between 680 and 750. Math scores were between 700 and 780.

SAT Reading and Writing Scores for Grinnell College  ( 680 to 750 )
200
800

SAT Math Scores for Grinnell College  ( 700 to 780 )
200
800
Grinnell received ACT scores from 27% of accepted students. When looking at the 25th through the 75th percentile, ACT Composite scores ranged between 31 and 34.

ACT Composite Scores for Grinnell College  ( 31 to 34 )
1
36

Learn more about Grinnell College admissions.

Grinnell College Faculty

9 to 1 Student to Faculty
80% Full Time Teachers

Student to Faculty Ratio

The student to faculty ratio is often used to measure the number of teaching resources that a college or university offers its students. The national average for this metric is 15 to 1, but at Grinnell it is much better at 9 to 1. That's good news for students who want to interact more on a personal level with their teachers.

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 Grinnell College is 80%. This is higher than the national average of 47%.

Full-Time Faculty Percent  80 out of 100
0
100

Retention and Graduation Rates at Grinnell College

93% Freshmen Retention
81% On-Time Graduation Rate

Freshmen Retention Rate

Grinnell College has a freshmen retention rate of 93%. That's a good sign that full-time students like the school and their professors enough to want to stick around for another year. It's also a sign that the admissions team did a good job in choosing applicants who were a good fit for the school.

Freshmen Retention Rate  93 out of 100
0
100

Graduation Rate

Students are considered to have graduated on time if they finish their studies within four years. At Grinnell the on-time graduation rate of first-time, full-time students is 81%. That is great when compared to the national average of 33.3%

On-Time Graduation Rate  81 out of 100
0
100

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

Grinnell College Undergraduate Student Diversity

1,459 Full-Time Undergraduates
26.5% Racial-Ethnic Minorities*
53.3% Percent Women

During the 2017-2018 academic year, there were 1,493 undergraduates at Grinnell with 1,459 being full-time and 34 being part-time.

How Much Does Grinnell College Cost?

$17,772 Net Price
15% Take Out Loans
$30,828 Total Student Loans
The overall average net price of Grinnell is $17,772. 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 Grinnell

$0-30 K $30K-48K $48-75 $75-110K $110K +
$9,158 $7,615 $9,760 $16,968 $35,578

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 Grinnell, 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 Grinnell, approximately 15% of students took out student loans averaging $7,707 a year. That adds up to $30,828 over four years for those students.

Get more details about paying for Grinnell College.

How Much Money Do Grinnell Graduates Make?

$62,830 Avg Salary of Grads
High Earnings Boost
Yearly salaries vary depending on what you major in, but on average, bachelor's degree recipients from Grinnell make around $62,830 per year during the early years of their employment. That's great news for Grinnell students since it is 28% more than the average college graduate's salary of $49,219 per year.

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See which majors at Grinnell College make the most money.

Location of Grinnell College

Iowa State
1,459 Full-Time Undergraduates
Town Campus Setting
Grinnell College is a private not-for-profit institution located in Grinnell, Iowa. The charming, small-town atmosphere of Grinnell draws many to the area.

Get more details about the location of Grinnell College.

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Contact details for Grinnell are given below.

Contact Details
Address: 1121 Park Street, Grinnell, IA 50112-1690
Phone: 641-269-4000
Website: www.grinnell.edu/

Grinnell College Majors

28 Majors With Completions
1,116 Undergraduate Degrees
1,116 Graduate Degrees
During the most recent year for which we have data, students from 28 majors graduated from Grinnell College. Of these students, 1,116 received undergraduate degrees and 1,116 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
Computer Science 56 $84,449
Biochemistry, Biophysics & Molecular Biology 48 $38,598
Mathematics 48 NA
Economics 46 $46,791
General Biology 40 $37,170
Political Science & Government 38 $36,662
Child Development & Psychology 33 $28,507
General English Literature 30 NA
Romance Languages 30 $28,691
Fine & Studio Arts 26 $20,111

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

Learn more about online learning at Grinnell College.

If you’re considering Grinnell College, here are some more schools you may be interested in knowing more about.

Curious on how these schools stack up against Grinnell? 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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