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Highline College Complete Information Guide

70 awards Ranking Badges
Fair Price Value for Your Money
10% Student Loan Default Rate

If you want to know more about Highline College, such as what majors does it offer, how diverse it is, how well it ranks, and more, this is your one-stop resource.

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.

* Rankings

Where Does Highline College Rank?

#813 Best Colleges in Nation
#22 Best Colleges in WA
Highline College ranking badge

2026 College Rankings

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.

Highline College was awarded 70 badges in the 2026 rankings.

Overall Quality

College Factual ranked Highline as #813 out of 3,449 colleges and universities in the country on its 2026 Best Colleges list.

Within the state, Highline holds the #22 spot on the Best Colleges in Washington ranking.

See all of the rankings for Highline College.

How Difficult Is Admission to Highline College?

Getting Accepted

Learn more about Highline College admissions.

Instructors at Highline College

13 to 1 Student to Faculty
96% Full Time Teachers

Class Sizes

With a student to faculty ratio of 13 to 1, Highline College 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.

Full-Time Instructors

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 Highline College is 96%. This is higher than the national average of 47%.

Full-Time Faculty Percent  96 out of 100
0
100

Student Success Metrics for Highline College

39% On-Time Graduation Rate

Academic Completion

The on-time graduation rate for someone pursuing a bachelor’s degree is typically four years. This rate at Highline for first-time, full-time students is 39%, which is better than the national average of 33.3%.

On-Time Graduation Rate  39 out of 100
0
100

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

Undergraduate Diversity at Highline College

3,487 Undergraduate Students
59.9% Racial-Ethnic Minorities*
63.6% Percent Women

The current enrollment includes 3,487 undergraduates at Highline.

Get more detailed information on the diversity at Highline College.

Cost of Attending Highline College

$16,772 Net Price
2% Take Out Loans
$27,272 Total Student Loans

The overall average net price of Highline 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 Highline

$0-30 K $30K-48K $48-75 $75-110K $110K +
$9,875 $10,004 $14,012 $11,413 $19,642

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 Highline, 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 Highline, approximately 2% of students took out student loans averaging $6,818 a year. That adds up to $27,272 over four years for those students. The student loan default rate is 10.2%. This is about the same as the national default rate of 10.1%. Get more details about paying for Highline College.

Post-Graduation Earnings for Highline College

$47,869 Avg Salary of Grads
Average Earnings Boost

Yearly salaries vary depending on what you major in, but on average, bachelor’s degree recipients from Highline College make around $47,869 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.

See which majors at Highline College make the most money.

Location of Highline College

Washington State
3,487 Undergraduate Students
Suburb Campus Setting

Highline College is an public institution found in Des Moines, Washington. Des Moines is a good match for students who enjoy the safety and convenience of the suburbs. Get more details about the location of Highline College.

Location of Highline College

Contact information for Highline College are listed below.

Contact Details
Address: 2400 S 240th St, Des Moines, WA 98198-9800
Phone: 2068783710
Website: www.highline.edu

Highline College Areas of Study

17 Majors With Completions
2,358 Undergraduate Degrees

During the most recent year for which we have data, students from 17 majors graduated from Highline College. 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 1,179 NA
Liberal Arts General Studies 393 $30,948
Teacher Education Grade Specific 164 NA
Allied Health Services 148 $43,154
Nursing 65 $69,653
Business & Commerce 54 NA
Information Technology 36 NA
General Physical Sciences 33 NA
Design & Applied Arts 28 NA
Interdisciplinary Studies 27 NA

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

Distance Learning at Highline

115% Take At Least One Class Online
60% Take All Classes Online

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.

3,996 students took at least one online class at Highline College.

Learn more about online learning at Highline College.

References and Footnotes

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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