by our College Data Analytics Team
In its yearly rankings, College Factual analyzes over 2,000 colleges and universities to determine which ones are the best in a variety of categories, such as overall value, quality, diversity, which schools are the best for each major, and much more.
Samford University was awarded 460 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.
Samford landed the #243 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 puts it in the top 15% of all schools in the nation. This is an improvement over the previous year, when Samford held the #258 spot on the Best Overall Colleges list.
Samford also holds the #4 spot on the Best Colleges in Alabama ranking.
Samford University has an acceptance rate of 84%, 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 22% of students accepted to Samford submitted their SAT scores. When looking at the 25th through the 75th percentile, SAT Evidence-Based Reading and Writing scores ranged between 570 and 660. Math scores were between 530 and 630.
The student to faculty ratio at Samford is an impressive 12 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.
When estimating how much access students will have to their teachers, some people like to look at what percentage of faculty members are full time. This is because part-time teachers may not have as much time to spend on campus as their full-time counterparts.
The full-time faculty percentage at Samford University is 99%. This is higher than the national average of 47%.
The freshmen retention rate of 89% tells us that most first-year, full-time students like Samford 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 Samford the on-time graduation rate of first-time, full-time students is 65%. That is great when compared to the national average of 33.3%
Find out more about the retention and graduation rates at Samford University.
During the 2017-2018 academic year, there were 3,576 undergraduates at Samford with 3,501 being full-time and 75 being part-time.
| $0-30 K | $30K-48K | $48-75 | $75-110K | $110K + |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $22,241 | $22,460 | $31,029 | $30,523 | $32,820 |
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 Samford, see our tuition and fees and room and board pages.
While almost two-thirds of students nationwide take out loans to pay for college, the percentage may be quite different for the school you plan on attending. At Samford, approximately 32% of students took out student loans averaging $8,928 a year. That adds up to $35,712 over four years for those students.
The student loan default rate at Samford is 2.0%. 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 the location of Samford University.
Contact details for Samford are given below.
| Contact Details | |
|---|---|
| Address: | 800 Lakeshore Drive, Birmingham, AL 35229-2240 |
| Phone: | 205-726-2011 |
| Website: | www.samford.edu/ |
| Twitter: | https://twitter.com/SamfordU |
| Most Popular Majors | Bachelor’s Degrees | Average Salary of Graduates |
|---|---|---|
| Nursing | 120 | $57,355 |
| Pharmacy/Pharmaceutical Sciences | 118 | NA |
| Marketing | 56 | $39,073 |
| Business Administration & Management | 55 | $44,263 |
| Journalism | 52 | $38,043 |
| Health/Medical Prep Programs | 46 | NA |
| Finance & Financial Management | 44 | $40,304 |
| Teacher Education Grade Specific | 42 | $37,334 |
| Health Sciences & Services | 40 | NA |
| Accounting | 38 | NA |
Online courses area a great option for busy, working students as well as for those who have scheduling conflicts and want to study on their own time. As time goes by, expect to see more and more online learning options become available.
In 2020-2021, 1,684 students took at least one online class at Samford University. This is a decrease from the 2,140 students who took online classes the previous year.
| Year | Took at Least One Online Class | Took All Classes Online |
|---|---|---|
| 2020-2021 | 1,684 | 379 |
| 2019-2020 | 2,140 | 535 |
| 2018-2019 | 1,726 | 588 |
| 2017-2018 | 1,691 | 651 |
| 2016-2017 | 1,572 | 757 |
If you’re considering Samford University, here are some more schools you may be interested in knowing more about.
Curious on how these schools stack up against Samford? 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.