by our College Data Analytics TeamCollege 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 Kentucky University was awarded 425 badges in the 2024 rankings. The highest ranked major at the school is business administration & management.
Explore the best ranked schools for the programs you are most interested in.
NKU landed the #716 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. This is an improvement over the previous year, when NKU held the #767 spot on the Best Overall Colleges list.
NKU also holds the #6 spot on the Best Colleges in Kentucky ranking.
When it comes to admittance, Northern Kentucky University is somewhat selective. Its acceptance rate is 80%, which means you'll face some strong competition during the admissions process. Do what you can to make your application stand out.
About 7% of students accepted to NKU submitted their SAT scores. When looking at the 25th through the 75th percentile, SAT Evidence-Based Reading and Writing scores ranged between 480 and 590. Math scores were between 503 and 620.
With a student to faculty ratio of 17 to 1, Northern Kentucky 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.
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 Kentucky University is 97%. This is higher than the national average of 47%.
The freshmen retention rate tells us what percentage of first-year, full-time students choose to continue on to their sophomore year at a particular school. The rate at Northern Kentucky University is 70%, which is about average when compared to the national rate of 68%.
The on-time graduation rate is the percent of first-time, full time students who obtain their bachelor's degree in four years or less. This rate is 26% for first-time, full-time students at NKU, which is lower than the national rate of 33.3%.
Find out more about the retention and graduation rates at Northern Kentucky University.
During the 2017-2018 academic year, there were 11,507 undergraduates at NKU with 8,024 being full-time and 3,483 being part-time.
| $0-30 K | $30K-48K | $48-75 | $75-110K | $110K + |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $4,632 | $5,947 | $9,505 | $12,656 | $13,235 |
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 NKU, 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 NKU, approximately 43% of students took out student loans averaging $5,689 a year. That adds up to $22,756 over four years for those students.
The student loan default rate at NKU is 7.2%. 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 Northern Kentucky University.
See which majors at Northern Kentucky University make the most money.
Get more details about the location of Northern Kentucky University.
Contact details for NKU are given below.
| Contact Details | |
|---|---|
| Address: | Nunn Drive, Highland Heights, KY 41099 |
| Phone: | 859-572-5100 |
| Website: | www.nku.edu/ |
| Facebook: | http://www.facebook.com/nkuedu |
| Twitter: | http://twitter.com/nkuedu |
| Most Popular Majors | Bachelor’s Degrees | Average Salary of Graduates |
|---|---|---|
| Business Administration & Management | 370 | $42,995 |
| Nursing | 251 | $56,585 |
| Computer Information Systems | 131 | $53,922 |
| Teacher Education Grade Specific | 131 | $33,770 |
| Liberal Arts General Studies | 103 | $30,646 |
| General Psychology | 98 | $28,982 |
| Human Resource Management | 81 | $41,423 |
| Social Work | 73 | $34,573 |
| Health Sciences & Services | 73 | $51,743 |
| Criminal Justice & Corrections | 66 | $34,751 |
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 2020-2021, 12,105 students took at least one online class at Northern Kentucky University. This is a decrease from the 15,166 students who took online classes the previous year.
| Year | Took at Least One Online Class | Took All Classes Online |
|---|---|---|
| 2020-2021 | 12,105 | 6,629 |
| 2019-2020 | 15,166 | 7,835 |
| 2018-2019 | 5,071 | 4,157 |
| 2017-2018 | 7,567 | 2,740 |
| 2016-2017 | 6,120 | 1,671 |
Learn more about online learning at Northern Kentucky University.
If you’re considering Northern Kentucky University, here are some more schools you may be interested in knowing more about.
Curious on how these schools stack up against NKU? 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.