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.
Messiah University was awarded 444 badges in the 2024 rankings. The highest ranked major at the school is physical education teaching & coaching.
Explore the best ranked schools for the programs you are most interested in.
Messiah is ranked #555 out of 2,217 schools in the nation for overall quality on College Factual's 2024 Best Colleges list.
Messiah also holds the #31 spot on the Best Colleges in Pennsylvania ranking.
Messiah University has an acceptance rate of 77%, which makes it somewhat selective. Make sure it's not the only school you apply to, even if it's your school of choice. Whether you get in or not will largely depend on how you compare to other applicants.
About 57% of students accepted to Messiah submitted their SAT scores. When looking at the 25th through the 75th percentile, SAT Evidence-Based Reading and Writing scores ranged between 560 and 670. Math scores were between 540 and 670.
The student to faculty ratio at Messiah is an impressive 12 to 1. That's quite good when you compare it to the national average of 15 to 1. This is a good sign that students at the school will have more opportunities for one-on-one interactions with their professors.
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 Messiah University is 57%. This is higher than the national average of 47%.
The freshmen retention rate of 85% tells us that most first-year, full-time students like Messiah 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 Messiah the on-time graduation rate of first-time, full-time students is 75%. That is great when compared to the national average of 33.3%
Find out more about the retention and graduation rates at Messiah University.
During the 2017-2018 academic year, there were 2,614 undergraduates at Messiah with 2,424 being full-time and 190 being part-time.
| $0-30 K | $30K-48K | $48-75 | $75-110K | $110K + |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $18,751 | $19,670 | $21,184 | $25,985 | $31,843 |
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 Messiah, 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 Messiah, approximately 65% of students took out student loans averaging $9,562 a year. That adds up to $38,248 over four years for those students.
The student loan default rate at Messiah is 2.3%. 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 the location of Messiah University.
Contact details for Messiah are given below.
| Contact Details | |
|---|---|
| Address: | One University Avenue, Mechanicsburg, PA 17055 |
| Phone: | 717-766-2511 |
| Website: | www.messiah.edu/ |
| Facebook: | https://www.facebook.com/MessiahCollege |
| Twitter: | https://twitter.com/messiahcollege |
| Most Popular Majors | Bachelor’s Degrees | Average Salary of Graduates |
|---|---|---|
| General Engineering | 55 | $57,515 |
| Health Sciences & Services | 49 | $22,969 |
| Teacher Education Grade Specific | 37 | $41,733 |
| Nursing | 37 | $62,117 |
| Human Development & Family Studies | 34 | $30,130 |
| Business Administration & Management | 31 | $41,254 |
| Teacher Education Subject Specific | 30 | $42,316 |
| General Psychology | 26 | $26,688 |
| Computer Science | 26 | NA |
| General Biology | 23 | $19,210 |
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, 817 students took at least one online class at Messiah University. This is a decrease from the 1,468 students who took online classes the previous year.
| Year | Took at Least One Online Class | Took All Classes Online |
|---|---|---|
| 2020-2021 | 817 | 584 |
| 2019-2020 | 1,468 | 501 |
| 2018-2019 | 517 | 445 |
| 2017-2018 | 549 | 463 |
| 2016-2017 | 535 | 491 |
If you’re considering Messiah University, here are some more schools you may be interested in knowing more about.
Curious on how these schools stack up against Messiah? 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.