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.
Pacific Lutheran University was awarded 100 badges in the 2024 rankings. The highest ranked major at the school is registered nursing.
Explore the best ranked schools for the programs you are most interested in.
College Factual ranked PLU as #688 out of 2,217 colleges and universities in the country on its 2024 Best Colleges list.
PLU also holds the #15 spot on the Best Colleges in Washington ranking.
Because it has a high acceptance rate of 88%, some consider PLU to be a safety school. But don't just assume that admittance is in the bag. Make sure to spend enough time on your application so that it is in tip-top shape.
About 11% of students accepted to PLU submitted their SAT scores. When looking at the 25th through the 75th percentile, SAT Evidence-Based Reading and Writing scores ranged between 570 and 693. Math scores were between 580 and 683.
The student to faculty ratio at PLU is an impressive 11 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 Pacific Lutheran University is 70%. This is higher than the national average of 47%.
The freshmen retention rate of 79% tells us that most first-year, full-time students like Pacific Lutheran 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 PLU the on-time graduation rate of first-time, full-time students is 59%. That is great when compared to the national average of 33.3%
Find out more about the retention and graduation rates at Pacific Lutheran University.
During the 2017-2018 academic year, there were 2,544 undergraduates at PLU with 2,486 being full-time and 58 being part-time.
| $0-30 K | $30K-48K | $48-75 | $75-110K | $110K + |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $14,532 | $15,500 | $21,062 | $28,190 | $28,832 |
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 PLU, 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 PLU, approximately 47% of students took out student loans averaging $6,921 a year. That adds up to $27,684 over four years for those students.
The student loan default rate at PLU is 2.7%. 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 Pacific Lutheran University.
See which majors at Pacific Lutheran University make the most money.
Get more details about the location of Pacific Lutheran University.
Contact details for PLU are given below.
| Contact Details | |
|---|---|
| Address: | 12180 Park Ave South, Tacoma, WA 98447-0003 |
| Phone: | 253-535-8145 |
| Website: | www.plu.edu/ |
| Facebook: | http://www.facebook.com/Pacific.Lutheran.University |
| Twitter: | http://twitter.com/PLUNEWS |
| Most Popular Majors | Bachelor’s Degrees | Average Salary of Graduates |
|---|---|---|
| Nursing | 94 | $69,659 |
| Business Administration & Management | 65 | $41,050 |
| General Biology | 44 | $27,895 |
| Health & Physical Education | 42 | $27,207 |
| Teacher Education Grade Specific | 32 | $51,494 |
| Communication & Media Studies | 26 | $33,589 |
| Computer Information Systems | 22 | $67,051 |
| General Psychology | 22 | $28,221 |
| Chemistry | 17 | $39,943 |
| Economics | 15 | 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, 128 students took at least one online class at Pacific Lutheran University. This is a decrease from the 2,855 students who took online classes the previous year.
| Year | Took at Least One Online Class | Took All Classes Online |
|---|---|---|
| 2020-2021 | 128 | 61 |
| 2019-2020 | 2,855 | 1,319 |
| 2018-2019 | 0 | 0 |
| 2017-2018 | 0 | 0 |
| 2016-2017 | 0 | 0 |
Learn more about online learning at Pacific Lutheran University.
If you’re considering Pacific Lutheran University, here are some more schools you may be interested in knowing more about.
Curious on how these schools stack up against PLU? 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.