by our College Data Analytics TeamCollege Factual recognizes the best colleges and universities in its annual rankings. These rankings include categories for best overall colleges, best colleges for each major, best value schools, and much more.
University of the Southwest was awarded 1 badge in the 2025 rankings. The highest ranked major at the school is exercise science and kinesiology.
Explore the best ranked schools for the programs you are most interested in.
College Factual ranked USW as #1,580 out of 2,152 colleges and universities in the country on its 2025 Best Colleges list. This is an improvement over the previous year, when USW held the #1,754 spot on the Best Overall Colleges list.
Out of the 24 colleges in New Mexico, USW is ranked at #13.
If you are worried about getting into University of the Southwest, don't be. The school has a liberal open admissions policy, which means you only need to meet basic requirements in order to be admitted. Still, be sure to submit a complete application and provide any other requested materials.
The student to faculty ratio is often used as a measure to gauge how much access students will have to their professors - the lower the number, the better. At University of the Southwest, this rate is 19 to 1, which is high when compared to the national average of 15 to 1.
In addition to the student to faculty ratio, some people look at what percentage of faculty members are full-time as a sign of how much time professors will be able to spend with their students. This is because part-time teachers may not be be on campus as much as their full-time counterparts.
The full-time faculty percentage at University of the Southwest is 100%. This is higher than the national average of 47%.
University of the Southwest has a freshmen retention rate of 83%. 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.
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 USW is 13%. That's lower than the national rate of 33.3%
Find out more about the retention and graduation rates at University of the Southwest.
During the 2017-2018 academic year, there were 370 undergraduates at USW with 300 being full-time and 70 being part-time.
| $0-30 K | $30K-48K | $48-75 | $75-110K | $110K + |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $18,661 | $18,169 | $20,005 | $22,396 | $22,519 |
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 USW, 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 USW, approximately 62% of students took out student loans averaging $6,218 a year. That adds up to $24,872 over four years for those students.
Get more details about paying for University of the Southwest.
See which majors at University of the Southwest make the most money.
Get more details about the location of University of the Southwest.
Contact details for USW are given below.
| Contact Details | |
|---|---|
| Address: | 6610 North Lovington Hwy, Hobbs, NM 88240 |
| Phone: | 575-392-6561 |
| Website: | https://www.usw.edu/ |
| Most Popular Majors | Bachelor’s Degrees | Average Salary of Graduates |
|---|---|---|
| Student Counseling | 53 | NA |
| Health & Physical Education | 43 | NA |
| Business Administration & Management | 26 | NA |
| General Biology | 20 | NA |
| Special Education | 20 | NA |
| Curriculum & Instruction | 17 | NA |
| Educational Assessment | 17 | NA |
| Mental & Social Health Services | 17 | NA |
| Accounting | 10 | NA |
| Educational Administration | 10 | NA |
Online learning options are becoming more and more popular at American colleges and universities. Online classes are great for students who have busy schedules or for those who just want to study on their own time.
In 2022-2023, 1,066 students took at least one online class at University of the Southwest. This is an increase from the 1,064 students who took online classes the previous year.
| Year | Took at Least One Online Class | Took All Classes Online |
|---|---|---|
| 2022-2023 | 1,066 | 697 |
| 2021-2022 | 1,064 | 650 |
| 2020-2021 | 904 | 534 |
| 2018-2019 | 888 | 617 |
Learn more about online learning at University of the Southwest.
If you’re considering University of the Southwest, here are some more schools you may be interested in knowing more about.
Curious on how these schools stack up against USW? 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.