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.
Western Illinois University was awarded 211 badges in the 2025 rankings. The highest ranked major at the school is criminal justice.
Explore the best ranked schools for the programs you are most interested in.
WIU landed the #884 spot in College Factual's 2025 ranking of best overall colleges in the United States. The higher ed experts analyzed 2,198 colleges and universities across the nation to determine this ranking.
WIU also holds the #41 spot on the Best Colleges in Illinois ranking.
When it comes to admittance, Western Illinois University is somewhat selective. Its acceptance rate is 75%, which means you'll face some strong competition during the admissions process. Do what you can to make your application stand out.
The student to faculty ratio is often used to estimate how much interaction there is between professors and their students at a college or university. At Western Illinois University, this ratio is 13 to 1, which is on par with the national average of 15 to 1. That's not bad at all.
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 Western Illinois University is 87%. This is higher than the national average of 47%.
The freshmen retention rate tells us what percentage of first-year, full-time students choose to continue on to their sophomore year at a particular school. The rate at Western Illinois University is 67%, which is about average when compared to the national rate of 68%.
The on-time graduation rate is the percent of first-time, full-time students who get their bachelor's degree with four years. At WIU this rate is 30%, which is about average when compared to the national rate of 33.3%.
Find out more about the retention and graduation rates at Western Illinois University.
During the 2017-2018 academic year, there were 5,854 undergraduates at WIU with 4,999 being full-time and 855 being part-time.
| $0-30 K | $30K-48K | $48-75 | $75-110K | $110K + |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $10,174 | $8,991 | $11,969 | $17,203 | $18,234 |
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 WIU, 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 WIU, approximately 45% of students took out student loans averaging $6,076 a year. That adds up to $24,304 over four years for those students.
Get more details about paying for Western Illinois University.
See which majors at Western Illinois University make the most money.
Get more details about the location of Western Illinois University.
Contact details for WIU are given below.
| Contact Details | |
|---|---|
| Address: | 1 University Circle, Macomb, IL 61455 |
| Phone: | 309-298-1414 |
| Website: | www.wiu.edu/ |
| Most Popular Majors | Bachelor’s Degrees | Average Salary of Graduates |
|---|---|---|
| Criminal Justice & Corrections | 225 | NA |
| Business Administration & Management | 153 | NA |
| Liberal Arts General Studies | 133 | NA |
| General Psychology | 77 | NA |
| Teacher Education Grade Specific | 71 | NA |
| General Agriculture | 64 | NA |
| Computer Information Systems | 61 | NA |
| Health & Physical Education | 51 | NA |
| General Biology | 50 | NA |
| Accounting | 50 | 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, 5,541 students took at least one online class at Western Illinois University. This is a decrease from the 5,947 students who took online classes the previous year.
| Year | Took at Least One Online Class | Took All Classes Online |
|---|---|---|
| 2022-2023 | 5,541 | 1,807 |
| 2021-2022 | 5,947 | 1,744 |
| 2020-2021 | 6,495 | 1,790 |
| 2018-2019 | 3,454 | 959 |
Learn more about online learning at Western Illinois University.
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.