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.
James Madison University was awarded 453 badges in the 2024 rankings. The highest ranked major at the school is sports management.
Explore the best ranked schools for the programs you are most interested in.
College Factual ranked JMU as #169 out of 2,217 colleges and universities in the country on its 2024 Best Colleges list. This puts it in the top 10% of all schools in the nation.
JMU also holds the #6 spot on the Best Colleges in Virginia ranking.
The acceptance rate at James Madison University is 86%, which is higher than many other schools to which you may be applying. But don't think getting into JMU 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.
About 26% of students accepted to JMU submitted their SAT scores. When looking at the 25th through the 75th percentile, SAT Evidence-Based Reading and Writing scores ranged between 580 and 660. Math scores were between 560 and 650.
With a student to faculty ratio of 16 to 1, James Madison University is about average in this regard as the nationwide rate is 15 to 1. While this does not translate directly to class size, it's a good indicator of how much time professors will have to spend with their students on a one-on-one basis.
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 James Madison University is 85%. This is higher than the national average of 47%.
The freshmen retention rate of 91% tells us that most first-year, full-time students like James Madison 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.
Students are considered to have graduated on time if they finish their studies within four years. At JMU the on-time graduation rate of first-time, full-time students is 69%. That is great when compared to the national average of 33.3%
Find out more about the retention and graduation rates at James Madison University.
During the 2017-2018 academic year, there were 19,727 undergraduates at JMU with 18,420 being full-time and 1,307 being part-time.
| $0-30 K | $30K-48K | $48-75 | $75-110K | $110K + |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $14,288 | $14,985 | $19,216 | $24,471 | $27,196 |
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 JMU, 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 JMU, approximately 36% of students took out student loans averaging $9,063 a year. That adds up to $36,252 over four years for those students.
The student loan default rate at JMU is 2.0%. 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.
See which majors at James Madison University make the most money.
Get more details about the location of James Madison University.
Contact details for JMU are given below.
| Contact Details | |
|---|---|
| Address: | 800 South Main Street, Harrisonburg, VA 22807 |
| Phone: | 540-568-6211 |
| Website: | www.jmu.edu/ |
| Facebook: | http://www.jmu.edu/jmuweb/facebook |
| Twitter: | https://twitter.com/JMU |
| Most Popular Majors | Bachelor’s Degrees | Average Salary of Graduates |
|---|---|---|
| Mental & Social Health Services | 504 | $30,000 |
| Health & Physical Education | 292 | $33,807 |
| Liberal Arts General Studies | 263 | $32,885 |
| Nursing | 254 | $65,005 |
| General Psychology | 240 | $28,370 |
| General Biology | 226 | $27,637 |
| Marketing | 174 | $49,719 |
| Information Science | 168 | $70,020 |
| Hospitality Management | 138 | $43,827 |
| Finance & Financial Management | 137 | $65,544 |
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, 7,843 students took at least one online class at James Madison University. This is a decrease from the 20,632 students who took online classes the previous year.
| Year | Took at Least One Online Class | Took All Classes Online |
|---|---|---|
| 2020-2021 | 7,843 | 1,103 |
| 2019-2020 | 20,632 | 4,653 |
| 2018-2019 | 1,832 | 689 |
| 2017-2018 | 1,632 | 545 |
| 2016-2017 | 1,530 | 591 |
Learn more about online learning at James Madison University.
If you’re considering James Madison University, here are some more schools you may be interested in knowing more about.
Curious on how these schools stack up against JMU? 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.