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.
Pepperdine University was awarded 42 badges in the 2025 rankings. The highest ranked major at the school is clinical, counseling & applied psychology.
Explore the best ranked schools for the programs you are most interested in.
Pepperdine is ranked #63 out of 2,152 schools in the nation for overall quality on College Factual's 2025 Best Colleges list. This lands it a coveted spot in the top 5% of all colleges and universities in the country. This is an improvement over the previous year, when Pepperdine held the #94 spot on the Best Overall Colleges list.
Out of the 161 colleges in California, Pepperdine is ranked at #11.
Pepperdine University has an acceptance rate of 49%, which means the school is serious about who it admits. Take your time in putting together a strong application that highlights why you are a good fit for Pepperdine.
About 16% of students accepted to Pepperdine submitted their SAT scores. When looking at the 25th through the 75th percentile, SAT Evidence-Based Reading and Writing scores ranged between 650 and 730. Math scores were between 635 and 750.
With a student to faculty ratio of 13 to 1, Pepperdine 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 Pepperdine University is 45%. This is comparable to the national average of 47%.
Pepperdine University has a freshmen retention rate of 88%. 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 Pepperdine for first-time, full-time students is 80%, which is better than the national average of 33.3%.
Find out more about the retention and graduation rates at Pepperdine University.
During the 2017-2018 academic year, there were 3,459 undergraduates at Pepperdine with 3,132 being full-time and 327 being part-time.
| $0-30 K | $30K-48K | $48-75 | $75-110K | $110K + |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $31,203 | $30,602 | $36,550 | $40,356 | $49,924 |
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 Pepperdine, 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 Pepperdine, approximately 44% of students took out student loans averaging $8,440 a year. That adds up to $33,760 over four years for those students.
See which majors at Pepperdine University make the most money.
Get more details about the location of Pepperdine University.
Contact details for Pepperdine are given below.
| Contact Details | |
|---|---|
| Address: | 24255 Pacific Coast Hwy, Malibu, CA 90263 |
| Phone: | 310-506-4000 |
| Website: | www.pepperdine.edu/ |
| Most Popular Majors | Bachelor’s Degrees | Average Salary of Graduates |
|---|---|---|
| Business Administration & Management | 753 | $69,751 |
| Clinical, Counseling & Applied Psychology | 663 | NA |
| General Psychology | 297 | $23,438 |
| Law | 174 | NA |
| International Business | 131 | NA |
| Legal Research | 129 | NA |
| Public Relations & Advertising | 127 | $45,988 |
| Dispute Resolution | 121 | NA |
| Educational Administration | 109 | NA |
| Teacher Education Grade Specific | 67 | NA |
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, 4,178 students took at least one online class at Pepperdine University. This is an increase from the 3,749 students who took online classes the previous year.
| Year | Took at Least One Online Class | Took All Classes Online |
|---|---|---|
| 2022-2023 | 4,178 | 3,100 |
| 2021-2022 | 3,749 | 3,015 |
| 2020-2021 | 9,554 | 9,554 |
| 2018-2019 | 891 | 891 |
If you’re considering Pepperdine University, here are some more schools you may be interested in knowing more about.
Curious on how these schools stack up against Pepperdine? 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.