College Factual  by our College Data Analytics Team
       Unbiased Factual Guarantee

San Francisco State University Data & Information Overview

435 awards Ranking Badges
Great Price Value for Your Money
93% Acceptance Rate
Get the facts about San Francisco State University. Learn how it ranks, what majors it offers, how diverse it is, and much more.
Want to know more about a specific stat? Just click on its tile, and you’ll go to a page that goes more in-depth on that subject. You can also use the links below to go directly to any section on this page.

How Well Is San Francisco State University Ranked?

#204 Best Colleges in Nation
#35 Best Colleges in CA
General Biology Highest Ranked Major
Quality Badge

2024 Rankings

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.

San Francisco State University was awarded 435 badges in the 2024 rankings. The highest ranked major at the school is general biology.

Explore Best Ranked Schools for You

Explore the best ranked schools for the programs you are most interested in.

Overall Quality

SFSU is ranked #204 out of 2,217 schools in the nation for overall quality on College Factual's 2024 Best Colleges list. This puts it in the top 10% of all schools in the nation. This is an improvement over the previous year, when SFSU held the #309 spot on the Best Overall Colleges list.

SFSU also holds the #35 spot on the Best Colleges in California ranking.

See all of the rankings for San Francisco State University.

Is It Hard to Get Into SFSU?

93% Acceptance Rate
61% Of Accepted Are Women

Acceptance Rate

With an acceptance rate of 93%, SFSU 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.

Learn more about San Francisco State University admissions.

San Francisco State University Faculty

20 to 1 Student to Faculty
50% Full Time Teachers

Student to Faculty Ratio

The student to faculty ratio at San Francisco State University is 20 to 1, which is high when compared to the national average of 15 to 1. This may indicate that some of your classes will be larger in size than they would be at other schools. However, upper level classes will probably be smaller.

Percent of Full-Time Faculty

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 San Francisco State University is 50%. This is comparable to the national average of 47%.

Full-Time Faculty Percent  50 out of 100
0
100

Retention and Graduation Rates at San Francisco State University

85% Freshmen Retention
22% On-Time Graduation Rate

Freshmen Retention Rate

San Francisco State University has a freshmen retention rate of 85%. 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.

Freshmen Retention Rate  85 out of 100
0
100

Graduation Rate

The on-time graduation rate is the percent of first-time, full time students who obtain their bachelor's degree in four years or less. This rate is 22% for first-time, full-time students at SFSU, which is lower than the national rate of 33.3%.

On-Time Graduation Rate  22 out of 100
0
100

Find out more about the retention and graduation rates at San Francisco State University.

San Francisco State University Undergraduate Student Diversity

19,847 Full-Time Undergraduates
74.7% Racial-Ethnic Minorities*
56.7% Percent Women

During the 2017-2018 academic year, there were 24,024 undergraduates at SFSU with 19,847 being full-time and 4,177 being part-time.

How Much Does San Francisco State University Cost?

$14,459 Net Price
20% Take Out Loans
$20,436 Total Student Loans
The overall average net price of SFSU is $14,459. The affordability of the school largely depends on your financial need since net price varies by income group. See the table below for the net price for different income groups.

Net Price by Income Group for SFSU

$0-30 K $30K-48K $48-75 $75-110K $110K +
$10,705 $11,862 $16,065 $20,159 $23,493

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 SFSU, see our tuition and fees and room and board pages.

Student Loan Debt

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 SFSU, approximately 20% of students took out student loans averaging $5,109 a year. That adds up to $20,436 over four years for those students.

The student loan default rate at SFSU is 4.3%. 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 San Francisco State University.

How Much Money Do SFSU Graduates Make?

$60,126 Avg Salary of Grads
High Earnings Boost
The pay for some majors is higher than others, but on average, students who graduate with a bachelor's degree from SFSU make about $60,126 a year during their first few years of employment after graduation. That's great news for SFSU students since it is 42% more than the average college graduate's salary of $42,485 per year.

undefined

See which majors at San Francisco State University make the most money.

Location of San Francisco State University

California State
19,847 Full-Time Undergraduates
Large City Campus Setting
San Francisco State University is a public institution situated in San Francisco, California. The surrounding area of the school is a good match for students who enjoy city life.

Get more details about the location of San Francisco State University.

undefined

Contact details for SFSU are given below.

Contact Details
Address: 1600 Holloway Ave, San Francisco, CA 94132
Phone: 415-338-1111
Website: www.sfsu.edu/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sanfranciscostate
Twitter: https://twitter.com/SFSU

San Francisco State University Majors

82 Majors With Completions
6,756 Undergraduate Degrees
1,173 Graduate Degrees
During the most recent year for which we have data, students from 82 majors graduated from San Francisco State University. Of these students, 6,756 received undergraduate degrees and 1,173 graduated with a master's or doctor's degree. The following table lists the most popular undergraduate majors along with the average salary graduates from those majors make.

Most Popular Majors Bachelor’s Degrees Average Salary of Graduates
Business Administration & Management 1,521 $46,360
General Psychology 429 $29,678
General Biology 348 $38,903
Communication & Media Studies 337 $42,620
Teacher Education Grade Specific 252 $38,565
Film, Video & Photographic Arts 238 $24,940
Computer Science 237 $55,088
Nutrition Science 233 $24,267
Criminal Justice & Corrections 233 $37,329
Health & Physical Education 216 $28,883

Learn more about the majors offered at San Francisco State University along with which ones have the highest average starting salaries.

Online Learning at SFSU

94% Take At Least One Class Online
52% Take All Classes Online

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 2020-2021, 25,188 students took at least one online class at San Francisco State University. This is a decrease from the 26,559 students who took online classes the previous year.

Year Took at Least One Online Class Took All Classes Online
2020-2021 25,188 14,003
2019-2020 26,559 25,452
2018-2019 10,208 473
2017-2018 11,011 418
2016-2017 10,264 386

Learn more about online learning at San Francisco State University.

If you’re considering San Francisco State University, here are some more schools you may be interested in knowing more about.

Curious on how these schools stack up against SFSU? 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!

Notes and References

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.

Popular Reports

College Rankings
Best by Location
Degree Guides by Major
Graduate Programs

Compare Your School Options