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.
Northern Arizona University was awarded 129 badges in the 2025 rankings. The highest ranked major at the school is education.
Explore the best ranked schools for the programs you are most interested in.
According to College Factual's 2025 analysis, NAU is ranked #221 out of 2,152 schools in the nation that were analyzed for overall quality. This puts it in the top 20% of all schools in the nation. This is an improvement over the previous year, when NAU held the #278 spot on the Best Overall Colleges list.
NAU is also ranked #7 out of 26 schools in Arizona.
The acceptance rate at Northern Arizona University is 80%. 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 NAU is a good fit for you.
At Northern Arizona University, the student to faculty ratio is 20 to 1. Compared to the national average of 15 to 1, this is somewhat high. This could mean that class sizes may be larger than they are at other colleges or universities or that professors may be required to teach more classes.
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 Northern Arizona University is 66%. This is higher than the national average of 47%.
Northern Arizona University has a freshmen retention rate of 76%. 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.
The on-time graduation rate for someone pursuing a bachelor's degree is typically four years. This rate at NAU for first-time, full-time students is 42%, which is better than the national average of 33.3%.
Find out more about the retention and graduation rates at Northern Arizona University.
During the 2017-2018 academic year, there were 25,228 undergraduates at NAU with 20,642 being full-time and 4,586 being part-time.
| $0-30 K | $30K-48K | $48-75 | $75-110K | $110K + |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $11,429 | $12,812 | $15,667 | $18,968 | $20,069 |
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 NAU, 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 NAU, approximately 40% of students took out student loans averaging $6,397 a year. That adds up to $25,588 over four years for those students.
Get more details about paying for Northern Arizona University.
See which majors at Northern Arizona University make the most money.
Get more details about the location of Northern Arizona University.
Contact details for NAU are given below.
| Contact Details | |
|---|---|
| Address: | 1900 S Knoles Dr, Babbitt Administrative Center, Room 200, Flagstaff, AZ 86011-4092 |
| Phone: | 928-523-9011 |
| Website: | https://nau.edu/ |
| Facebook: | https://www.facebook.com/pages/Northern-Arizona-University/17091779559 |
| Twitter: | https://twitter.com/NAU |
| Most Popular Majors | Bachelor’s Degrees | Average Salary of Graduates |
|---|---|---|
| Nursing | 520 | $76,782 |
| General Biology | 493 | $34,940 |
| Teacher Education Grade Specific | 465 | $45,032 |
| Liberal Arts General Studies | 418 | $43,752 |
| General Psychology | 395 | $33,844 |
| Business Administration & Management | 356 | $47,884 |
| Criminology | 250 | $37,214 |
| Educational Administration | 248 | NA |
| Communication Sciences | 230 | NA |
| Social Work | 221 | $38,247 |
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, 15,293 students took at least one online class at Northern Arizona University. This is a decrease from the 15,811 students who took online classes the previous year.
| Year | Took at Least One Online Class | Took All Classes Online |
|---|---|---|
| 2022-2023 | 15,293 | 5,570 |
| 2021-2022 | 15,811 | 6,208 |
| 2020-2021 | 17,340 | 6,363 |
| 2018-2019 | 13,328 | 6,304 |
Learn more about online learning at Northern Arizona University.
If you’re considering Northern Arizona University, here are some more schools you may be interested in knowing more about.
Curious on how these schools stack up against NAU? 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.