by our College Data Analytics Team
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.
San Diego State University was awarded 124 badges in the 2025 rankings. The highest ranked major at the school is communication sciences.
Explore the best ranked schools for the programs you are most interested in.
College Factual ranked SDSU as #185 out of 2,152 colleges and universities in the country on its 2025 Best Colleges list. This puts it in the top 10% of all schools in the nation.
SDSU also holds the #25 spot on the Best Colleges in California ranking.
The acceptance rate at San Diego State University is a competitive 39%, so make sure you take your application seriously when putting it together. Even leaving out a minor detail could be a reason to move you to the rejection pile.
The student to faculty ratio at San Diego State University is 25 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.
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 San Diego State University is 50%. This is comparable to the national average of 47%.
San Diego State University has a freshmen retention rate of 89%. 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.
Students are considered to have graduated on time if they finish their studies within four years. At SDSU the on-time graduation rate of first-time, full-time students is 47%. That is great when compared to the national average of 33.3%
Find out more about the retention and graduation rates at San Diego State University.
During the 2017-2018 academic year, there were 31,491 undergraduates at SDSU with 28,084 being full-time and 3,407 being part-time.
| $0-30 K | $30K-48K | $48-75 | $75-110K | $110K + |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $7,220 | $8,513 | $13,217 | $17,578 | $22,059 |
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 SDSU, see our tuition and fees and room and board pages.
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 SDSU, approximately 22% of students took out student loans averaging $8,240 a year. That adds up to $32,960 over four years for those students.
Get more details about paying for San Diego State University.
See which majors at San Diego State University make the most money.
Get more details about the location of San Diego State University.
Contact details for SDSU are given below.
| Contact Details | |
|---|---|
| Address: | 5500 Campanile Dr, San Diego, CA 92182-0001 |
| Phone: | 619-594-5200 |
| Website: | www.sdsu.edu/ |
| Most Popular Majors | Bachelor’s Degrees | Average Salary of Graduates |
|---|---|---|
| Business Administration & Management | 1,960 | $46,275 |
| General Psychology | 724 | $29,346 |
| Criminal Justice & Corrections | 418 | $33,261 |
| Health & Physical Education | 408 | $26,327 |
| Other Multi/Interdisciplinary Studies | 356 | $33,165 |
| Teacher Education Grade Specific | 347 | $28,793 |
| Communication & Media Studies | 330 | $37,773 |
| General Biology | 310 | $33,597 |
| Computer Science | 288 | $74,523 |
| Public Health | 286 | $41,092 |
Online courses area 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.
In 2022-2023, 20,812 students took at least one online class at San Diego State University. This is a decrease from the 23,442 students who took online classes the previous year.
| Year | Took at Least One Online Class | Took All Classes Online |
|---|---|---|
| 2022-2023 | 20,812 | 1,456 |
| 2021-2022 | 23,442 | 1,785 |
| 2020-2021 | 35,821 | 30,790 |
| 2018-2019 | 16,434 | 646 |
Learn more about online learning at San Diego State University.
If you’re considering San Diego State University, here are some more schools you may be interested in knowing more about.
Curious on how these schools stack up against SDSU? 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.