by our College Data Analytics Team
College Factual recognizes the best colleges and universities in its annual rankings. These rankings include categories for best overall colleges, best colleges for each major, best value schools, and much more.
Iowa State University was awarded 134 badges in the 2025 rankings. The highest ranked major at the school is visual & performing arts.
Explore the best ranked schools for the programs you are most interested in.
College Factual ranked Iowa State as #88 out of 2,152 colleges and universities in the country on its 2025 Best Colleges list. This puts it in the top 5% of all schools in the nation.
Iowa State is also ranked #2 out of 37 schools in Iowa.
With an acceptance rate of 90%, Iowa State University is easier to get into than many other schools. But that doesn't mean you can slack off on your application. Make sure to treat this school like any other when submitting requested materials and documents.
About 19% of students accepted to Iowa State submitted their SAT scores. When looking at the 25th through the 75th percentile, SAT Evidence-Based Reading and Writing scores ranged between 540 and 660. Math scores were between 550 and 690.
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 Iowa State University, this ratio is 18 to 1, which is on par with the national average of 15 to 1. That's not bad at all.
In addition to the student to faculty ratio, some people look at what percentage of faculty members are full-time as a sign of how much time professors will be able to spend with their students. This is because part-time teachers may not be be on campus as much as their full-time counterparts.
The full-time faculty percentage at Iowa State University is 85%. This is higher than the national average of 47%.
The freshmen retention rate of 86% tells us that most first-year, full-time students like Iowa State 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 Iowa State for first-time, full-time students is 50%, which is better than the national average of 33.3%.
Find out more about the retention and graduation rates at Iowa State University.
During the 2017-2018 academic year, there were 26,843 undergraduates at Iowa State with 25,271 being full-time and 1,572 being part-time.
| $0-30 K | $30K-48K | $48-75 | $75-110K | $110K + |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $7,532 | $9,230 | $12,102 | $17,262 | $20,129 |
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 Iowa State, see our tuition and fees and room and board pages.
Almost 66% of college students who graduated with the class of 2018 took out student loans, but that percentage varies from school to school. At Iowa State, approximately 47% of students took out student loans averaging $7,620 a year. That adds up to $30,480 over four years for those students.
See which majors at Iowa State University make the most money.
Get more details about the location of Iowa State University.
Contact details for Iowa State are given below.
| Contact Details | |
|---|---|
| Address: | 1750 Beardshear Hall, Ames, IA 50011-2103 |
| Phone: | 515-294-4111 |
| Website: | https://www.iastate.edu/ |
| Most Popular Majors | Bachelor’s Degrees | Average Salary of Graduates |
|---|---|---|
| Business Administration & Management | 440 | $57,188 |
| Mechanical Engineering | 406 | $72,900 |
| Computer Engineering | 347 | $79,182 |
| Computer Information Systems | 326 | $60,397 |
| Marketing | 300 | $48,304 |
| Animal Science | 262 | $39,567 |
| Design & Applied Arts | 247 | $37,565 |
| Finance & Financial Management | 240 | $56,974 |
| General Psychology | 233 | $34,155 |
| General Biology | 230 | $32,528 |
Online learning options are becoming more and more popular at American colleges and universities. Online classes are great for students who have busy schedules or for those who just want to study on their own time.
In 2022-2023, 16,558 students took at least one online class at Iowa State University. This is an increase from the 16,019 students who took online classes the previous year.
| Year | Took at Least One Online Class | Took All Classes Online |
|---|---|---|
| 2022-2023 | 16,558 | 1,013 |
| 2021-2022 | 16,019 | 1,108 |
| 2020-2021 | 28,334 | 4,289 |
| 2018-2019 | 7,589 | 1,374 |
If you’re considering Iowa State University, here are some more schools you may be interested in knowing more about.
Curious on how these schools stack up against Iowa State? 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.