by our College Data Analytics TeamCollege 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.
Eastern Illinois University was awarded 193 badges in the 2024 rankings. The highest ranked major at the school is art studies.
Explore the best ranked schools for the programs you are most interested in.
EIU landed the #1,112 spot in College Factual's 2024 ranking of best overall colleges in the United States. The higher ed experts analyzed 2,217 colleges and universities across the nation to determine this ranking.
EIU is also ranked #51 out of 85 schools in Illinois.
The acceptance rate at Eastern Illinois University is 72%. That's higher than the rate at many schools, but still low enough to be considered somewhat selective. If you want to get in, you'll need good grades and to be able to show that EIU is a good fit for you.
About 56% of students accepted to EIU submitted their SAT scores. When looking at the 25th through the 75th percentile, SAT Evidence-Based Reading and Writing scores ranged between 460 and 580. Math scores were between 440 and 560.
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 Eastern Illinois University, this ratio is 14 to 1, which is on par with the national average of 15 to 1. That's not bad at all.
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 Eastern Illinois University is 77%. This is higher than the national average of 47%.
Eastern Illinois University has a freshmen retention rate of 74%. 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 it comes to finishing their studies on time, those seeking a bachelor's degree from EIU have a four-year graduation rate of 36%. This is comparable to the national average of 33.3%
Find out more about the retention and graduation rates at Eastern Illinois University.
During the 2017-2018 academic year, there were 6,969 undergraduates at EIU with 4,082 being full-time and 2,887 being part-time.
| $0-30 K | $30K-48K | $48-75 | $75-110K | $110K + |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $11,015 | $10,056 | $12,675 | $17,594 | $20,021 |
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 EIU, 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 EIU, approximately 63% of students took out student loans averaging $6,165 a year. That adds up to $24,660 over four years for those students.
The student loan default rate at EIU is 6.1%. Although this is lower than the national default rate of 10.1%, you'll still want to keep this in mind when taking out student loans.
Get more details about paying for Eastern Illinois University.
See which majors at Eastern Illinois University make the most money.
Get more details about the location of Eastern Illinois University.
Contact details for EIU are given below.
| Contact Details | |
|---|---|
| Address: | 600 Lincoln Avenue, Charleston, IL 61920 |
| Phone: | 217-581-5000 |
| Website: | https://www.eiu.edu/ |
| Facebook: | http://www.facebook.com/iameiu |
| Twitter: | http://www.twitter.com/eiu |
| Most Popular Majors | Bachelor’s Degrees | Average Salary of Graduates |
|---|---|---|
| General Psychology | 103 | $28,549 |
| Liberal Arts General Studies | 100 | $33,984 |
| Teacher Education Grade Specific | 73 | $35,177 |
| Health & Physical Education | 67 | $31,035 |
| General Biology | 49 | $28,027 |
| General Family & Consumer Sciences | 48 | $29,815 |
| Other Multi/Interdisciplinary Studies | 37 | $35,479 |
| Nursing | 35 | $59,362 |
| Communication & Media Studies | 33 | $32,917 |
| Management Sciences & Quantitative Methods | 32 | $42,684 |
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 2020-2021, 3,908 students took at least one online class at Eastern Illinois University. This is a decrease from the 5,422 students who took online classes the previous year.
| Year | Took at Least One Online Class | Took All Classes Online |
|---|---|---|
| 2020-2021 | 3,908 | 1,459 |
| 2019-2020 | 5,422 | 1,706 |
| 2018-2019 | 2,639 | 1,086 |
| 2017-2018 | 2,495 | 985 |
| 2016-2017 | 2,304 | 779 |
Learn more about online learning at Eastern 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.