by our College Data Analytics TeamThis overview covers the essential stats on Harding University, including its rankings, majors, diversity, and more.
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.
Harding University was awarded 204 badges in the 2026 rankings.
College Factual ranked Harding as #697 out of 3,449 colleges and universities in the country on its 2026 Best Colleges list.
Harding is also ranked #3 on the Best Colleges in Arkansas list.
Harding University has an acceptance rate of 70%, which makes it somewhat selective. Make sure it’s not the only school you apply to, even if it’s your school of choice. Whether you get in or not will largely depend on how you compare to other applicants.
About 18% of students accepted to Harding submitted their SAT scores. When looking at the 25th through the 75th percentile, SAT Evidence-Based Reading and Writing scores ranged between 530 and 660. Math scores were between 520 and 630.
Harding received ACT scores from 75% of accepted students. When looking at the 25th through the 75th percentile, ACT Composite scores ranged between 20 and 29.
The student to faculty ratio at Harding University is about average at 13 to 1. This ratio is often used to gauge how many students might be in an average class and how much time professors will have to spend with their students on an individual level. The national average for this metric is 15 to 1.
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 Harding University is 71%. This is higher than the national average of 47%.
The freshmen retention rate of 87% tells us that most first-year, full-time students like Harding 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 Harding the on-time graduation rate of first-time, full-time students is 71%. That is great when compared to the national average of 33.3%.
Find out more about the retention and graduation rates at Harding University.
The current enrollment includes 3,323 undergraduates at Harding.
Get more detailed information on the diversity at Harding University.
The typical net cost at Harding is $16,772. 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 Harding
| $0-30 K | $30K-48K | $48-75 | $75-110K | $110K + |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $16,473 | $16,466 | $18,528 | $22,084 | $23,563 |
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 price for a school. For more information on the sticker price of Harding, see our tuition and fees and room and board pages.
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 Harding, approximately 44% of students took out student loans averaging $10,055 a year. That adds up to $40,220 over four years for those students. The student loan default rate is 2.9%. 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 Harding University.
Yearly salaries vary depending on what you major in, but on average, bachelor’s degree recipients from Harding University make around $52,876 per year during the early years of their employment. This is right on par with the average college graduate’s salary of $49,219 per year. Also, graduates in your major field may make more.
Harding University is an private not-for-profit institution located in Searcy, Arkansas. Searcy is a great place for students who enjoy small town life. Get more details about the location of Harding University.
Contact details for Harding University are listed below.
| Contact Details | |
|---|---|
| Address: | 915 E. Market Ave., Searcy, AR 72149-5615 |
| Phone: | 5012794000 |
| Website: | www.harding.edu |
| Facebook: | www.facebook.com/HardingU |
| Twitter: | twitter.com/HardingU |
In the most recent reporting year, students from 24 majors graduated from Harding University. The following table lists the most popular undergraduate majors along with the average salary graduates from those majors make.
| Most Popular Majors | Completions | Average Salary of Graduates |
|---|---|---|
| Multi-Disciplinary Studies | 1,304 | NA |
| Teacher Education Grade Specific | 164 | $39,123 |
| Business Administration & Management | 93 | $53,898 |
| Nursing | 65 | $66,697 |
| Health & Physical Education | 54 | NA |
| Communication Sciences | 51 | $38,542 |
| Information Science | 51 | NA |
| Accounting | 40 | $56,219 |
| Computer Science | 37 | $72,335 |
| Special Education | 36 | NA |
Online courses are 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.
804 students took at least one online class at Harding University.
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.