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.
Salem State University was awarded 386 badges in the 2024 rankings. The highest ranked major at the school is art education.
Explore the best ranked schools for the programs you are most interested in.
According to College Factual's 2024 analysis, Salem State is ranked #802 out of 2,217 schools in the nation that were analyzed for overall quality. This is an improvement over the previous year, when Salem State held the #1,216 spot on the Best Overall Colleges list.
Salem State also holds the #37 spot on the Best Colleges in Massachusetts ranking.
With an acceptance rate of 90%, Salem State has a fairly liberal admissions policy. However, don't just assume you'll get in! Put together a good application and make sure you include all requested documents and materials.
With a student to faculty ratio of 13 to 1, Salem 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 Salem State University is 99%. This is higher than the national average of 47%.
Salem State University has a freshmen retention rate of 75%. 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.
Students are considered to have graduated on time if they finish their studies within four years. At Salem State the on-time graduation rate of first-time, full-time students is 40%. That is great when compared to the national average of 33.3%
Find out more about the retention and graduation rates at Salem State University.
During the 2017-2018 academic year, there were 5,716 undergraduates at Salem State with 4,444 being full-time and 1,272 being part-time.
| $0-30 K | $30K-48K | $48-75 | $75-110K | $110K + |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $14,560 | $16,668 | $18,141 | $21,401 | $24,305 |
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 Salem State, 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 Salem State, approximately 68% of students took out student loans averaging $6,749 a year. That adds up to $26,996 over four years for those students.
The student loan default rate at Salem State is 5.9%. 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.
See which majors at Salem State University make the most money.
Get more details about the location of Salem State University.
Contact details for Salem State are given below.
| Contact Details | |
|---|---|
| Address: | 352 Lafayette St, Salem, MA 01970 |
| Phone: | 978-542-6000 |
| Website: | www.salemstate.edu/ |
| Facebook: | https://www.facebook.com/salemstateuniversity |
| Twitter: | https://twitter.com/SalemState |
| Most Popular Majors | Bachelor’s Degrees | Average Salary of Graduates |
|---|---|---|
| General Psychology | 143 | $33,517 |
| Business Administration & Management | 101 | $42,434 |
| Criminal Justice & Corrections | 101 | $39,277 |
| General Biology | 75 | $37,411 |
| Accounting | 73 | NA |
| Social Work | 57 | $36,115 |
| Nursing | 45 | $68,690 |
| Marketing | 44 | NA |
| Health & Medical Administrative Services | 44 | NA |
| Finance & Financial Management | 36 | 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, 5,230 students took at least one online class at Salem State University. This is a decrease from the 7,123 students who took online classes the previous year.
| Year | Took at Least One Online Class | Took All Classes Online |
|---|---|---|
| 2020-2021 | 5,230 | 1,251 |
| 2019-2020 | 7,123 | 4,903 |
| 2018-2019 | 2,479 | 271 |
| 2017-2018 | 2,229 | 305 |
| 2016-2017 | 2,502 | 273 |
If you’re considering Salem State University, here are some more schools you may be interested in knowing more about.
Curious on how these schools stack up against Salem State? 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.