by our College Data Analytics TeamCollege 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.
Northern State University was awarded 13 badges in the 2025 rankings. The highest ranked major at the school is general biology.
Explore the best ranked schools for the programs you are most interested in.
NSU landed the #1,285 spot in College Factual's 2025 ranking of best overall colleges in the United States. The higher ed experts analyzed 2,152 colleges and universities across the nation to determine this ranking.
NSU is also ranked #10 out of 13 schools in South Dakota.
Northern State University has an acceptance rate of 78%, 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 3% of students accepted to NSU submitted their SAT scores. When looking at the 25th through the 75th percentile, SAT Evidence-Based Reading and Writing scores ranged between 410 and 580. Math scores were between 390 and 570.
With a student to faculty ratio of 16 to 1, Northern 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.
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 Northern State University is 97%. This is higher than the national average of 47%.
Northern State University has a freshmen retention rate of 74%. 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.
The on-time graduation rate is the percent of first-time, full-time students who get their bachelor's degree with four years. At NSU this rate is 29%, which is about average when compared to the national rate of 33.3%.
Find out more about the retention and graduation rates at Northern State University.
During the 2017-2018 academic year, there were 2,968 undergraduates at NSU with 1,149 being full-time and 1,819 being part-time.
| $0-30 K | $30K-48K | $48-75 | $75-110K | $110K + |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $13,927 | $14,632 | $17,815 | $19,885 | $20,081 |
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 NSU, 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 NSU, approximately 61% of students took out student loans averaging $7,038 a year. That adds up to $28,152 over four years for those students.
Get more details about paying for Northern State University.
See which majors at Northern State University make the most money.
Get more details about the location of Northern State University.
Contact details for NSU are given below.
| Contact Details | |
|---|---|
| Address: | 1200 S Jay St, Aberdeen, SD 57401-7198 |
| Phone: | 605-626-3011 |
| Website: | www.northern.edu/ |
| Most Popular Majors | Bachelor’s Degrees | Average Salary of Graduates |
|---|---|---|
| Teacher Education Subject Specific | 41 | NA |
| General Biology | 37 | NA |
| Teacher Education Grade Specific | 34 | $46,042 |
| Health & Physical Education | 33 | $40,123 |
| Business Administration & Management | 29 | $43,667 |
| Liberal Arts General Studies | 25 | NA |
| Finance & Financial Management | 23 | $47,781 |
| Accounting | 20 | $51,239 |
| Special Education | 19 | NA |
| Educational Administration | 11 | NA |
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, 2,099 students took at least one online class at Northern State University. This is an increase from the 2,056 students who took online classes the previous year.
| Year | Took at Least One Online Class | Took All Classes Online |
|---|---|---|
| 2022-2023 | 2,099 | 1,475 |
| 2021-2022 | 2,056 | 1,439 |
| 2020-2021 | 2,349 | 1,545 |
| 2018-2019 | 1,918 | 1,448 |
Learn more about online learning at Northern State University.
If you’re considering Northern State University, here are some more schools you may be interested in knowing more about.
Curious on how these schools stack up against NSU? 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.