The Northwestern University Student to Faculty Ratio & Faculty Composition

Does Northwestern University have a good student to faculty ratio?

Use the student to faculty ratio, as well as the faculty composition to get an idea of how much attention you'll receive as an individual student at Northwestern University.

Student to Faculty Ratio is Well Above Average

Student to faculty ratio is a common metric used to gauge the number of teaching resources a school provides for its students. With 7 students for every one instructional faculty member, Northwestern University ranks among the best colleges when compared to the national average of 14.

Instructional Staff at the College

The following table shows all the employees the school considers instructional, and therefore, part of the above student-to-faculty ratio. These include both those employees designated as either "primarily instructional" or as "instructional combined with research/public service". It does not include employees that have been identified by Northwestern University as primarily performing research or public service.

This School is Seriously Committed to Hiring Full-Time Teachers

Northwestern University's utilization of full-time teaching staff ranks among the highest in the nation, with 81.0% of instructors employed full time.

Any Questions?

• Research-Focused College: This school has a large number of faculty that spend a significant amount of their time on research projects. This can be a big plus if you are interested in pursuing graduate work or performing research yourself. However, the risk for all students, particularly undergrads, is that many of the faculty may be focused on their research, not on your instruction.

Low Amount of Part-Time Teachers (Adjuncts)

At Northwestern University, only 19.0% of the teaching staff are part-time non-faculty or non-tenure track faculty. This use of adjuncts is far below the national average of 49.1%, which could be indicative of Northwestern University's commitment to building a strong, long-term instructional team.

Colleges often use part-time professors and adjuncts to teach courses, rather than full-time faculty. This hiring practice is primarily a way to save money amid increasingly tight budgets. However, it is a controversial practice with strong views on either side. We encourage you to understand this topic more deeply, and how the colleges you are interested in approach faculty hiring. It's your education and your money on the line. Make sure you know what you are getting for it.

Additional Information

• What is an Adjunct?

  On this page, we refer to an adjunct teacher or a part-time teacher interchangeably, although each school may have a slightly different definition. In short, an adjunct professor can either work full-time or part-time during a school semester, but they have no contract or a contract that lasts only a short amount of time. To come up with the numbers for this page, we use the total number of part-time non-faculty and non-tenure track faculty to represent the count of adjuncts for the college or university.

Keep an Eye Out for Grad Assistants Teaching Classes

Northwestern University has 778 instructional graduate assistants that teach or provide teaching-related duties. These responsibilities could range from entirely teaching lower-level courses themselves, to assisting professors by developing teaching materials, preparing or giving exams and grading student work. We suggest you ask the college to what extent graduate assistants are relied on for instruction, so you know what you are paying for.

Additionally, the school has 666 non-instructional graduate assistants.