Sam Houston State University Data & Information Overview

Get the facts about Sam Houston State University. Learn how it ranks, what majors it offers, how diverse it is, and much more. If you're interested in learning more about a particular stat, just click on its tile to go to a new page that covers the topic more in-depth. Also, you can jump to any section of this page by clicking one of the links below.

• Rankings
• Admission and Acceptance
• Faculty
• Retention and Graduation Rates
• Diversity
• Cost
• Student Debt
• Average Earnings
• Location
• Majors
• Online Learning
• Related Schools

How Well Is Sam Houston State University Ranked?

2021 Rankings

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.

Sam Houston State University was awarded 92 badges in the 2021 rankings. The highest ranked major at the school is homeland security, law enforcement and firefighting.

Overall Quality

College Factual ranked SHSU as #824 out of 1,715 colleges and universities in the country on its 2021 Best Colleges list.

SHSU is also ranked #26 out of 85 schools in Texas.

See all of the rankings for Sam Houston State University.

Is It Hard to Get Into SHSU?

Acceptance Rate

When it comes to admittance, Sam Houston State University is somewhat selective. Its acceptance rate is 74%, which means you'll face some strong competition during the admissions process. Do what you can to make your application stand out.

Average Test Scores

About 76% of students accepted to SHSU submitted their SAT scores. When looking at the 25th through the 75th percentile, SAT Evidence-Based Reading and Writing scores ranged between 500 and 580. Math scores were between 500 and 560.

SHSU received ACT scores from 46% of accepted students. When looking at the 25th through the 75th percentile, ACT Composite scores ranged between 19 and 23.

Learn more about Sam Houston State University admissions.

Sam Houston State University Faculty

Student to Faculty Ratio

At Sam Houston State University, the student to faculty ratio is 21 to 1. Compared to the national average of 15 to 1, this is somewhat high. This could mean that class sizes may be larger than they are at other colleges or universities or that professors may be required to teach more classes.

Percent of Full-Time Faculty

When estimating how much access students will have to their teachers, some people like to look at what percentage of faculty members are full time. This is because part-time teachers may not have as much time to spend on campus as their full-time counterparts.

The full-time faculty percentage at Sam Houston State University is 80%. This is higher than the national average of 47%.

Retention and Graduation Rates at Sam Houston State University

Freshmen Retention Rate

Sam Houston State University has a freshmen retention rate of 77%. 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.

Graduation Rate

The on-time graduation rate is the percent of first-time, full time students who obtain their bachelor's degree in four years or less. This rate is 26% for first-time, full-time students at SHSU, which is lower than the national rate of 33.3%.

Find out more about the retention and graduation rates at Sam Houston State University.

Good Overall Diversity at SHSU

During the 2017-2018 academic year, there were 18,805 undergraduates at SHSU with 15,311 being full-time and 3,494 being part-time.

SHSU Diversity Score

For each college and university, College Factual calculates an overall diversity score that takes four factors into account: gender, ethnicity, age, and home location of the student. Then, the schools with the best mixtures of students with respect to these factors are ranked the highest.

The overall diversity score for SHSU is 64.59 out of 100, meaning that is is more diverse than most schools in the country.

Get more detailed information on diversity and student demographics at Sam Houston State University.

How Much Does Sam Houston State University Cost?

The overall average net price of SHSU is $13,666. 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 SHSU

$0-30 K	$30K-48K	$48-75	$75-110K	$110K +
$9,861	$10,794	$13,982	$18,116	$19,019

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 SHSU, see our tuition and fees and room and board pages.

Student Loan Debt

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 SHSU, approximately 62% of students took out student loans averaging $5,925 a year. That adds up to $23,700 over four years for those students.

The student loan default rate at SHSU is 5.8%. 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 Sam Houston State University.

How Much Money Do SHSU Graduates Make?

Although some majors pay more than others, students who graduate from SHSU with a bachelor's degree go on to jobs where they make an average salary of $44,600 in their early years. That's great news for SHSU students since it is 12% more than the average college graduate's salary of $39,802 per year.

See which majors at Sam Houston State University make the most money.

Location of Sam Houston State University

Sam Houston State University is a public institution located in Huntsville, Texas. Huntsville is a great place for students who enjoy small town life.

Get more details about the location of Sam Houston State University.

Contact details for SHSU are given below.

	Contact Details
Address:	1806 Ave J, Huntsville, TX 77340
Phone:	936-294-1111
Website:	www.shsu.edu/
Facebook:	http://www.facebook.com/samhoustonstate
Twitter:	http://twitter.com/samhoustonstate

Sam Houston State University Majors

During the most recent year for which we have data, students from 75 majors graduated from Sam Houston State University. Of these students, 4,343 received undergraduate degrees and 920 graduated with a master's or doctor's degree. The following table lists the most popular undergraduate majors along with the average salary graduates from those majors make.

Most Popular Majors	Bachelor’s Degrees	Average Salary of Graduates
Criminal Justice & Corrections	884	$33,500
Other Multi/Interdisciplinary Studies	383	$45,000
General Business/Commerce	313	$38,900
General Psychology	215	$28,700
Communication & Media Studies	194	$29,100
Health & Physical Education	177	$32,200
Finance & Financial Management	156	$41,900
Accounting	137	$43,400
Public Health	123	NA
History	123	$28,200

Learn more about the majors offered at Sam Houston State University along with which ones have the highest average starting salaries.

Online Learning at SHSU

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 2017-2018, 11,265 students took at least one online class at Sam Houston State University. This is an increase from the 10,547 students who took online classes the previous year.

Year	Took at Least One Online Class	Took All Classes Online
2017-2018	11,265	3,489
2016-2017	10,547	3,062
2015-2016	9,456	2,833
2014-2015	9,278	2,711
2013-2014	7,904	2,438

Learn more about online learning at Sam Houston State University.

Related Schools

If you’re considering Sam Houston State University, here are some more schools you may be interested in knowing more about.

• Georgia College & State University
• Northwest Missouri State University
• The University of Texas at San Antonio
• The University of West Florida
• Valdosta State University

Curious on how these schools stack up against SHSU? 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!

Notes and References

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

• National Center for Education Statistics
• College Scorecard
• Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System
• Image Credit: By Bigguill under License

More about our data sources and methodologies.