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University of Southern California Data & Information Overview

435 awards Ranking Badges
Great Price Value for Your Money
13% Acceptance Rate
Find out more about how University of Southern California ranks, how diverse it is, what majors it offers, and other essential facts below.
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How Well Is University of Southern California Ranked?

#11 Best Colleges in Nation
#2 Best Colleges in CA
Business Administration & Management Highest Ranked Major
Quality Badge

2024 Rankings

College Factual analyzes over 2,000 colleges and universities in its annual rankings and ranks them in a variety of ways, including most diverse, best overall quality, best for non-traditional students, and much more.

University of Southern California was awarded 435 badges in the 2024 rankings. The highest ranked major at the school is business administration & management.

Explore Best Ranked Schools for You

Explore the best ranked schools for the programs you are most interested in.

Overall Quality

According to College Factual's 2024 analysis, USC is ranked #11 out of 2,217 schools in the nation that were analyzed for overall quality. This puts it in the top 1% of all schools in the nation! This is an improvement over the previous year, when USC held the #18 spot on the Best Overall Colleges list.

USC also holds the #2 spot on the Best Colleges in California ranking.

See all of the rankings for University of Southern California.

Is It Hard to Get Into USC?

13% Acceptance Rate
52% Of Accepted Are Women
31% Submit SAT Scores

Acceptance Rate

With an acceptance rate of 13%, USC is one of the most selective schools in the country. Good grades and high test scores alone may not be enough to get you into the school, so do your best to submit a stellar application.

Average Test Scores

About 31% of students accepted to USC submitted their SAT scores. When looking at the 25th through the 75th percentile, SAT Evidence-Based Reading and Writing scores ranged between 690 and 750. Math scores were between 720 and 790.

SAT Reading and Writing Scores for University of Southern California  ( 690 to 750 )
200
800

SAT Math Scores for University of Southern California  ( 720 to 790 )
200
800
USC received ACT scores from 19% of accepted students. When looking at the 25th through the 75th percentile, ACT Composite scores ranged between 32 and 35.

ACT Composite Scores for University of Southern California  ( 32 to 35 )
1
36

Learn more about University of Southern California admissions.

University of Southern California Faculty

9 to 1 Student to Faculty
62% Full Time Teachers

Student to Faculty Ratio

The student to faculty ratio is often used to measure the number of teaching resources that a college or university offers its students. The national average for this metric is 15 to 1, but at USC it is much better at 9 to 1. That's good news for students who want to interact more on a personal level with their teachers.

Percent of Full-Time Faculty

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 University of Southern California is 62%. This is higher than the national average of 47%.

Full-Time Faculty Percent  62 out of 100
0
100

Retention and Graduation Rates at University of Southern California

96% Freshmen Retention
78% On-Time Graduation Rate

Freshmen Retention Rate

University of Southern California has a freshmen retention rate of 96%. 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.

Freshmen Retention Rate  96 out of 100
0
100

Graduation Rate

The on-time graduation rate for someone pursuing a bachelor's degree is typically four years. This rate at USC for first-time, full-time students is 78%, which is better than the national average of 33.3%.

On-Time Graduation Rate  78 out of 100
0
100

Find out more about the retention and graduation rates at University of Southern California.

University of Southern California Undergraduate Student Diversity

18,560 Full-Time Undergraduates
51.8% Racial-Ethnic Minorities*
52.0% Percent Women

During the 2017-2018 academic year, there were 19,786 undergraduates at USC with 18,560 being full-time and 1,226 being part-time.

How Much Does University of Southern California Cost?

$32,569 Net Price
22% Take Out Loans
$25,200 Total Student Loans
The overall average net price of USC is $32,569. 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 USC

$0-30 K $30K-48K $48-75 $75-110K $110K +
$17,287 $17,345 $22,826 $32,363 $52,917

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 USC, 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 USC, approximately 22% of students took out student loans averaging $6,300 a year. That adds up to $25,200 over four years for those students.

The student loan default rate at USC is 1.3%. 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 University of Southern California.

How Much Money Do USC Graduates Make?

$83,426 Avg Salary of Grads
High Earnings Boost
Although some majors pay more than others, students who graduate from USC with a bachelor's degree go on to jobs where they make an average salary of $83,426 in their early years. That's great news for USC students since it is 96% more than the average college graduate's salary of $42,485 per year.

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See which majors at University of Southern California make the most money.

Location of University of Southern California

California State
18,560 Full-Time Undergraduates
Large City Campus Setting
University of Southern California is a private not-for-profit institution located in Los Angeles, California. The location of the school is great for students who enjoy the amenities of city life.

Get more details about the location of University of Southern California.

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Contact details for USC are given below.

Contact Details
Address: University Park, Los Angeles, CA 90089
Phone: 213-740-2311
Website: www.usc.edu/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/usc
Twitter: https://twitter.com/usc

University of Southern California Majors

139 Majors With Completions
5,600 Undergraduate Degrees
10,065 Graduate Degrees
During the most recent year for which we have data, students from 139 majors graduated from University of Southern California. Of these students, 5,600 received undergraduate degrees and 10,065 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
Business Administration & Management 1,035 $62,573
Communication & Media Studies 336 $46,379
Computer Science 293 $104,298
Human Biology 236 $30,297
Economics 221 $54,837
General Psychology 177 $34,924
Accounting 175 $64,797
International Relations & National Security 171 $48,625
Applied Mathematics 167 $61,861
Film, Video & Photographic Arts 158 $35,793

Learn more about the majors offered at University of Southern California along with which ones have the highest average starting salaries.

Online Learning at USC

46% Take At Least One Class Online
15% Take All Classes Online

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 2020-2021, 22,847 students took at least one online class at University of Southern California. This is a decrease from the 41,112 students who took online classes the previous year.

Year Took at Least One Online Class Took All Classes Online
2020-2021 22,847 7,556
2019-2020 41,112 37,923
2018-2019 8,203 6,651
2017-2018 8,581 6,707
2016-2017 7,608 5,953

Learn more about online learning at University of Southern California.

If you’re considering University of Southern California, here are some more schools you may be interested in knowing more about.

Curious on how these schools stack up against USC? 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

More about our data sources and methodologies.

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