Rio Hondo College is a public institution in Whittier, California enrolling 15,684 undergraduates. It has an on-time graduation rate of 25%, below the national average of 33%. College Factual ranks it #1,752 of 5,159 colleges nationwide in its 2027 Best Colleges ranking (top 34%), and its Value for Your Money analysis rates it a Fair Price.
Source: IPEDS 2025; College Scorecard July 2026; College Factual rankings 2027. Data as of: July 2026.
Rio Hondo College ranks #1,752 of 5,159 colleges nationwide in College Factual’s 2027 Best Colleges ranking, placing it in the top 34%.
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.
Rio Hondo College was awarded 25 badges in the 2027 rankings.
Rio Hondo College is ranked #1,752 out of 5,159 schools in the nation for overall quality on College Factual’s 2027 Best Colleges list.
Rio Hondo College also holds the #196 spot on the Best Colleges in California ranking.
See all of the rankings for Rio Hondo College.
Learn more about Rio Hondo College admissions.
The student to faculty ratio at Rio Hondo College is 31 to 1, which is high when compared to the national average of 15 to 1. This may indicate that some of your classes will be larger in size than they would be at other schools. However, upper level classes will probably be smaller.
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 Rio Hondo College is 31%. This is lower than the national average of 47%.
The freshmen retention rate of 100% tells us that most first-year, full-time students like Rio Hondo College 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.
When we say that a student has graduated on time, we mean that they have finished their bachelor’s degree within four years. The on-time graduation rate at Rio Hondo College is 25%. That’s lower than the national rate of 33.3%.
Find out more about the retention and graduation rates at Rio Hondo College.
In the current academic year, there are 15,684 undergraduates at Rio Hondo College.
Get more detailed information on the diversity at Rio Hondo College.
The overall average net price of Rio Hondo College is $17,140. 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.
| $0-30 K | $30K-48K | $48-75 | $75-110K | $110K + |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $14,549 | $12,728 | $15,030 | $17,305 | $17,355 |
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 Rio Hondo College, see our tuition and fees and room and board pages.
Almost 66% of college students who graduated with the class of 2018 took out student loans, but that percentage varies from school to school. At Rio Hondo College, approximately 1% of students took out student loans averaging $6,233 a year. That adds up to $24,932 over four years for those students. The student loan default rate is 7.7%. Although this is lower than the national default rate of 10.1%, you’ll still want to keep this in mind when taking out student loans. Get more details about paying for Rio Hondo College.
Although some majors pay more than others, students who graduate from Rio Hondo College with a bachelor’s degree go on to jobs where they make an average salary of $44,950 in their early years. This is in the same neighborhood of the average college graduate’s salary of $49,219 per year. However, certain majors may produce higher-paying graduates.
See which majors at Rio Hondo College make the most money.
Rio Hondo College is an public institution located in Whittier, California. The rural area surrounding the school is great for students who prefer living in a country setting. Get more details about the location of Rio Hondo College.
Contact information for Rio Hondo College are listed below.
| Contact Details | |
|---|---|
| Address: | 3600 Workman Mill Rd, Whittier, CA 90601-1616 |
| Phone: | 5626920921 |
| Website: | www.riohondo.edu |
In the latest year of available data, students from 31 majors graduated from Rio Hondo 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 | 4,664 | NA |
| Liberal Arts General Studies | 1,820 | NA |
| Criminal Justice & Corrections | 409 | NA |
| Carpentry | 340 | NA |
| Fire Protection | 282 | NA |
| Business Administration & Management | 235 | NA |
| Child Development & Family Studies | 209 | NA |
| Biological & Physical Science | 173 | NA |
| Vehicle Maintenance & Repair | 133 | NA |
| General Psychology | 123 | NA |
7,856 students took at least one online class at Rio Hondo College.
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.
Learn more about online learning at Rio Hondo College.
Curious how schools stack up against Rio Hondo College? Pit them head to head with College Combat, a free interactive tool for comparing colleges on the features you care about.
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.