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.
Northern State University was awarded 125 badges in the 2024 rankings. The highest ranked major at the school is teacher education subject specific.
Explore the best ranked schools for the programs you are most interested in.
NSU landed the #803 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 NSU held the #997 spot on the Best Overall Colleges list.
Out of the 13 colleges in South Dakota, NSU is ranked at #8.
Northern State University has an acceptance rate of 80%, 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 5% of students accepted to NSU submitted their SAT scores. When looking at the 25th through the 75th percentile, SAT Evidence-Based Reading and Writing scores ranged between 530 and 600. Math scores were between 490 and 590.
With a student to faculty ratio of 16 to 1, Northern State 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 Northern State University is 96%. 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 State University is 68%, which is about average when compared to the national rate of 68%.
When it comes to finishing their studies on time, those seeking a bachelor's degree from NSU have a four-year graduation rate of 31%. This is comparable to the national average of 33.3%
Find out more about the retention and graduation rates at Northern State University.
During the 2017-2018 academic year, there were 2,968 undergraduates at NSU with 1,149 being full-time and 1,819 being part-time.
| $0-30 K | $30K-48K | $48-75 | $75-110K | $110K + |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $13,085 | $13,172 | $18,273 | $18,221 | $19,301 |
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 NSU, 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 NSU, approximately 66% of students took out student loans averaging $6,165 a year. That adds up to $24,660 over four years for those students.
The student loan default rate at NSU is 4.7%. 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 paying for Northern State University.
See which majors at Northern State University make the most money.
Get more details about the location of Northern State University.
Contact details for NSU are given below.
| Contact Details | |
|---|---|
| Address: | 1200 S Jay St, Aberdeen, SD 57401-7198 |
| Phone: | 605-626-3011 |
| Website: | www.northern.edu/ |
| Facebook: | https://www.facebook.com/pages/Northern-State-University/112538332202097 |
| Twitter: | https://twitter.com/NorthernStateU |
| Most Popular Majors | Bachelor’s Degrees | Average Salary of Graduates |
|---|---|---|
| Teacher Education Grade Specific | 38 | $39,033 |
| Business Administration & Management | 26 | $38,996 |
| Special Education | 21 | NA |
| Health & Physical Education | 20 | $32,526 |
| Teacher Education Subject Specific | 20 | $39,862 |
| Accounting | 18 | $45,902 |
| General Psychology | 16 | NA |
| Marketing | 13 | NA |
| General Biology | 11 | NA |
| General English Literature | 10 | NA |
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, 2,056 students took at least one online class at Northern State University. This is a decrease from the 2,349 students who took online classes the previous year.
| Year | Took at Least One Online Class | Took All Classes Online |
|---|---|---|
| 2020-2021 | 2,056 | 1,439 |
| 2019-2020 | 2,349 | 1,545 |
| 2018-2019 | 1,958 | 1,467 |
| 2017-2018 | 1,918 | 1,448 |
| 2016-2017 | 1,971 | 1,504 |
Learn more about online learning at Northern State University.
If you’re considering Northern State University, here are some more schools you may be interested in knowing more about.
Curious on how these schools stack up against NSU? 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.