by our College Data Analytics Team
In 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.
Catholic University of America was awarded 24 badges in the 2025 rankings. The highest ranked major at the school is music.
Explore the best ranked schools for the programs you are most interested in.
College Factual ranked CUA as #268 out of 2,152 colleges and universities in the country on its 2025 Best Colleges list. This puts it in the top 20% of all schools in the nation. This is an improvement over the previous year, when CUA held the #367 spot on the Best Overall Colleges list.
Out of the 7 colleges in District of Columbia, CUA is ranked at #4.
The acceptance rate at Catholic University of America is 86%, which is higher than many other schools to which you may be applying. But don't think getting into CUA is a sure thing. The admissions staff is still going to review your application to see if you are a good fit for the school.
At CUA, the student to faculty ratio is an excellent 11 to 1. That's much better than the national average of 15 to 1. This indicates that many classes will probably be small, and students will have ample opportunites to work closely with their professors and classmates.
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 Catholic University of America is 48%. This is comparable to the national average of 47%.
The freshmen retention rate of 88% tells us that most first-year, full-time students like Catholic University of America 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.
Students are considered to have graduated on time if they finish their studies within four years. At CUA the on-time graduation rate of first-time, full-time students is 68%. That is great when compared to the national average of 33.3%
Find out more about the retention and graduation rates at Catholic University of America.
During the 2017-2018 academic year, there were 3,055 undergraduates at CUA with 2,934 being full-time and 121 being part-time.
| $0-30 K | $30K-48K | $48-75 | $75-110K | $110K + |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $24,529 | $20,499 | $23,829 | $30,696 | $38,121 |
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 CUA, 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 CUA, approximately 54% of students took out student loans averaging $10,152 a year. That adds up to $40,608 over four years for those students.
The student loan default rate at CUA is 1.0%. 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 Catholic University of America.
See which majors at Catholic University of America make the most money.
Get more details about the location of Catholic University of America.
Contact details for CUA are given below.
| Contact Details | |
|---|---|
| Address: | 620 Michigan Avenue, Ne, Washington, DC 20064 |
| Phone: | 202-319-5000 |
| Website: | https://www.catholic.edu/ |
| Most Popular Majors | Bachelor’s Degrees | Average Salary of Graduates |
|---|---|---|
| Business Administration & Management | 165 | $57,490 |
| Social Work | 125 | NA |
| Law | 113 | NA |
| Nursing | 96 | $81,044 |
| General Architecture | 91 | $44,615 |
| Political Science & Government | 80 | $44,617 |
| Theology & Religious Vocations (Other) | 58 | NA |
| Mechanical Engineering | 49 | $76,409 |
| Theological & Ministerial Studies | 46 | NA |
| Philosophy | 40 | 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, 1,046 students took at least one online class at Catholic University of America. This is a decrease from the 1,265 students who took online classes the previous year.
| Year | Took at Least One Online Class | Took All Classes Online |
|---|---|---|
| 2022-2023 | 1,046 | 392 |
| 2021-2022 | 1,265 | 470 |
| 2020-2021 | 5,263 | 3,107 |
| 2018-2019 | 781 | 414 |
Learn more about online learning at Catholic University of America.
If you’re considering Catholic University of America, here are some more schools you may be interested in knowing more about.
Curious on how these schools stack up against CUA? 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.