The Western Washington University Student to Faculty Ratio & Faculty Composition

Does Western Washington University have a good student to faculty ratio?

Use the student to faculty ratio, as well as the faculty composition to get an idea of how much attention you'll receive as an individual student at Western Washington University .

Worse Than Average Student to Faculty Ratio

Student to faculty ratio is one of the standard metrics used to gauge the number of teaching resources a school provides for its students. With 18 students for every one instructional faculty member, Western Washington University has more students split among the same faculty when compared to the national average of 15 . This metric might be an indicator that larger class sizes may be the norm, especially in introductory courses.

Instructional Staff at the College

The following table shows all the employees the school considers instructional, and therefore, part of the above student-to-faculty ratio. These include both those employees designated as either "primarily instructional" or as "instructional combined with research/public service". It does not include employees that have been identified by Western Washington University as primarily performing research or public service.

Below Average Use of Part-Timers

Western Washington University has more full-time teachers than the average school, with 68.0% of instructors teaching full time.

Below Average Reliance on Part-Time Teachers

At Western Washington University , only 30.0% of the teaching staff are part-time non-faculty or non-tenure track faculty. This use of adjuncts is low, below the national average of 51.4%, which could be indicative of Western Washington University's commitment to building a strong, long-term instructional team.

Colleges often use part-time professors and adjuncts to teach courses, rather than full-time faculty. This hiring practice is primarily a way to save money amid increasingly tight budgets. However, it is a controversial practice with strong views on either side. We encourage you to understand this topic more deeply, and how the colleges you are interested in approach faculty hiring. It's your education and your money on the line. Make sure you know what you are getting for it.

Additional Information

• What is an Adjunct?

  On this page, we refer to an adjunct teacher or a part-time teacher interchangeably, although each school may have a slightly different definition. In short, an adjunct professor can either work full-time or part-time during a school semester, but they have no contract or a contract that lasts only a short amount of time. To come up with the numbers for this page, we use the total number of part-time non-faculty and non-tenure track faculty to represent the count of adjuncts for the college or university.

Keep an Eye Out for Grad Assistants Teaching Classes

Western Washington University has 254 instructional graduate assistants that teach or provide teaching-related duties. These responsibilities could range from entirely teaching lower-level courses themselves, to assisting professors by developing teaching materials, preparing or giving exams and grading student work. We suggest you ask the college to what extent graduate assistants are relied on for instruction, so you know what you are paying for.

Additionally, the school has 5 non-instructional graduate assistants.