by our College Data Analytics TeamIn 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.
SOWELA Technical Community College was awarded 56 badges in the 2025 rankings. The highest ranked major at the school is engineering technologies.
Explore the best ranked schools for the programs you are most interested in.
SOWELA was not ranked in College Factual's Best Overall Colleges report this year. This may be because not enough data was available.
See all of the rankings for SOWELA Technical Community College.
SOWELA Technical Community College has an open admissions policy, so you should not have much trouble being accepted by the school. Still, it is important to fill out the application completely and submit any requested materials, which may include proof that you have a high school diploma or the equivalent.
With a student to faculty ratio of 16 to 1, SOWELA Technical Community College 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.
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 SOWELA Technical Community College is 63%. This is higher than the national average of 47%.
The freshmen retention rate is a sign of how many full-time students like a college or university well enough to come back for their sophomore year. At SOWELA Technical Community College this rate is 60%, which is a bit lower than the national average of 68%.
During the 2017-2018 academic year, there were 2,914 undergraduates at SOWELA with 1,492 being full-time and 1,422 being part-time.
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 SOWELA, 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 SOWELA, approximately 1% of students took out student loans averaging $4,833 a year. That adds up to $19,332 over four years for those students.
The student loan default rate at SOWELA is 27.0%. Watch out! This is significantly higher than the national default rate of 10.1%, which means you could have trouble paying back your student loans if you take any out.
Get more details about paying for SOWELA Technical Community College.
See which majors at SOWELA Technical Community College make the most money.
Get more details about the location of SOWELA Technical Community College.
Contact details for SOWELA are given below.
| Contact Details | |
|---|---|
| Address: | 3820 Senator J. Bennett Johnston Ave, Lake Charles, LA 70615 |
| Phone: | 337-421-6565 |
| Website: | www.sowela.edu/ |
| Most Popular Majors | Bachelor’s Degrees | Average Salary of Graduates |
|---|---|---|
| Industrial Production Technology | 315 | NA |
| Electromechanical Engineering Technology | 254 | NA |
| Electrical & Power Transmission Installers | 241 | NA |
| Liberal Arts General Studies | 212 | NA |
| Business Support & Assistant Services | 154 | NA |
| General Business/Commerce | 119 | NA |
| Culinary Arts | 103 | NA |
| Precision Metal Working | 88 | NA |
| Criminal Justice & Corrections | 73 | NA |
| Practical Nursing & Nursing Assistants | 72 | NA |
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, 1,411 students took at least one online class at SOWELA Technical Community College. This is a decrease from the 1,605 students who took online classes the previous year.
| Year | Took at Least One Online Class | Took All Classes Online |
|---|---|---|
| 2022-2023 | 1,411 | 511 |
| 2021-2022 | 1,605 | 422 |
| 2020-2021 | 1,560 | 388 |
| 2018-2019 | 1,068 | 189 |
Learn more about online learning at SOWELA Technical Community College.
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.