by our College Data Analytics Team
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.
Brown University was awarded 117 badges in the 2025 rankings. The highest ranked major at the school is business, management & marketing.
Explore the best ranked schools for the programs you are most interested in.
Brown landed the #26 spot in College Factual's 2025 ranking of best overall colleges in the United States. The higher ed experts analyzed 2,152 colleges and universities across the nation to determine this ranking. This lands it a coveted spot in the top 5% of all colleges and universities in the country.
Brown is also ranked #1 out of 9 schools in Rhode Island.
With an acceptance rate of 5%, Brown 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.
About 54% of students accepted to Brown submitted their SAT scores. When looking at the 25th through the 75th percentile, SAT Evidence-Based Reading and Writing scores ranged between 730 and 780. Math scores were between 760 and 800.
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 Brown it is much better at 6 to 1. That's good news for students who want to interact more on a personal level with their teachers.
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 Brown University is 90%. This is higher than the national average of 47%.
The freshmen retention rate of 99% tells us that most first-year, full-time students like Brown University enough to come back for another year. This is a fair bit higher than the national average of 68%. That's certainly something to check off in the good column about the school.
The on-time graduation rate for someone pursuing a bachelor's degree is typically four years. This rate at Brown for first-time, full-time students is 84%, which is better than the national average of 33.3%.
Find out more about the retention and graduation rates at Brown University.
During the 2017-2018 academic year, there were 6,792 undergraduates at Brown with 6,605 being full-time and 187 being part-time.
| $0-30 K | $30K-48K | $48-75 | $75-110K | $110K + |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $4,741 | $1,199 | $8,394 | $20,163 | $46,032 |
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 Brown, see our tuition and fees and room and board pages.
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 Brown, approximately 12% of students took out student loans averaging $10,059 a year. That adds up to $40,236 over four years for those students.
Get more details about the location of Brown University.
Contact details for Brown are given below.
| Contact Details | |
|---|---|
| Address: | One Prospect Street, Providence, RI 02912 |
| Phone: | 401-863-1000 |
| Website: | www.brown.edu/ |
| Most Popular Majors | Bachelor’s Degrees | Average Salary of Graduates |
|---|---|---|
| Computer Science | 361 | $151,065 |
| Economics | 237 | $72,064 |
| Applied Mathematics | 194 | $99,193 |
| General Engineering | 177 | $86,416 |
| Public Health | 170 | $75,909 |
| Medicine | 148 | NA |
| Public Policy | 123 | $58,161 |
| Area Studies | 113 | $39,165 |
| General Biology | 111 | $36,084 |
| International Relations & National Security | 100 | $46,284 |
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 2022-2023, 588 students took at least one online class at Brown University. This is a decrease from the 1,477 students who took online classes the previous year.
| Year | Took at Least One Online Class | Took All Classes Online |
|---|---|---|
| 2022-2023 | 588 | 207 |
| 2021-2022 | 1,477 | 74 |
| 2020-2021 | 8,626 | 5,520 |
| 2018-2019 | 0 | 0 |
If you’re considering Brown University, here are some more schools you may be interested in knowing more about.
Curious on how these schools stack up against Brown? 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.