College Factual  by our College Data Analytics Team
       Unbiased Factual Guarantee

Southern Adventist University Data & Information Overview

395 awards Ranking Badges
Great Price Value for Your Money
74% Acceptance Rate
If you want to know more about Southern Adventist University, such as what majors does it offer, how diverse it is, how well it ranks, and more, this is your one-stop resource.
Want to dig deeper into a particular stat? Just click on its tile and you’ll be taked to a more in-depth page on the figure. In addition, you can use the links below to quickly jump to any section on this page.

How Well Is Southern Adventist University Ranked?

#273 Best Colleges in Nation
#5 Best Colleges in TN
Nursing Highest Ranked Major
Quality Badge

2024 Rankings

College 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.

Southern Adventist University was awarded 395 badges in the 2024 rankings. The highest ranked major at the school is nursing.

Explore Best Ranked Schools for You

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

Overall Quality

Southern Adventist landed the #273 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 Southern Adventist held the #523 spot on the Best Overall Colleges list.

Out of the 45 colleges in Tennessee, Southern Adventist is ranked at #5.

See all of the rankings for Southern Adventist University.

Is It Hard to Get Into Southern Adventist?

74% Acceptance Rate
59% Of Accepted Are Women

Acceptance Rate

When it comes to admittance, Southern Adventist University is somewhat selective. Its acceptance rate is 74%, which means you'll face some strong competition during the admissions process. Do what you can to make your application stand out.

Learn more about Southern Adventist University admissions.

Southern Adventist University Faculty

13 to 1 Student to Faculty
100% Full Time Teachers

Student to Faculty Ratio

With a student to faculty ratio of 13 to 1, Southern Adventist 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.

Percent of Full-Time Faculty

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 Southern Adventist University is 100%. This is higher than the national average of 47%.

Full-Time Faculty Percent  100 out of 100
0
100

Retention and Graduation Rates at Southern Adventist University

82% Freshmen Retention
27% On-Time Graduation Rate

Freshmen Retention Rate

The freshmen retention rate of 82% tells us that most first-year, full-time students like Southern Adventist 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.

Freshmen Retention Rate  82 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 27% for first-time, full-time students at Southern Adventist, which is lower than the national rate of 33.3%.

On-Time Graduation Rate  27 out of 100
0
100

Find out more about the retention and graduation rates at Southern Adventist University.

Southern Adventist University Undergraduate Student Diversity

2,103 Full-Time Undergraduates
54.1% Racial-Ethnic Minorities*
55.3% Percent Women

During the 2017-2018 academic year, there were 2,384 undergraduates at Southern Adventist with 2,103 being full-time and 281 being part-time.

How Much Does Southern Adventist University Cost?

$23,733 Net Price
44% Take Out Loans
$30,920 Total Student Loans
The overall average net price of Southern Adventist is $23,733. 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 Southern Adventist

$0-30 K $30K-48K $48-75 $75-110K $110K +
$18,262 $20,683 $23,091 $26,824 $28,363

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 Southern Adventist, see our tuition and fees and room and board pages.

Student Loan Debt

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 Southern Adventist, approximately 44% of students took out student loans averaging $7,730 a year. That adds up to $30,920 over four years for those students.

The student loan default rate at Southern Adventist is 4.5%. 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 Southern Adventist University.

How Much Money Do Southern Adventist Graduates Make?

$48,003 Avg Salary of Grads
High Earnings Boost
Yearly salaries vary depending on what you major in, but on average, bachelor's degree recipients from Southern Adventist make around $48,003 per year during the early years of their employment. That's great news for Southern Adventist students since it is 13% more than the average college graduate's salary of $42,485 per year.

undefined

See which majors at Southern Adventist University make the most money.

Location of Southern Adventist University

Tennessee State
2,103 Full-Time Undergraduates
Suburb Campus Setting
Located in Collegedale, Tennessee, Southern Adventist University is a private not-for-profit institution. Southern Adventist is located in a safe and convenient suburb.

Get more details about the location of Southern Adventist University.

undefined

Contact details for Southern Adventist are given below.

Contact Details
Address: 4881 Taylor Cir, Collegedale, TN 37315-0370
Phone: 423-236-2000
Website: www.southern.edu/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SouthernAdventistUniversity
Twitter: https://twitter.com/SouthernNews

Southern Adventist University Majors

84 Majors With Completions
747 Undergraduate Degrees
158 Graduate Degrees
During the most recent year for which we have data, students from 84 majors graduated from Southern Adventist University. Of these students, 747 received undergraduate degrees and 158 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
Nursing 89 $56,507
Teacher Education Grade Specific 89 $41,420
General Biology 54 NA
Health & Physical Education 23 NA
Business Administration & Management 20 $32,843
Social Work 19 NA
Teacher Education Subject Specific 15 NA
Marketing 14 NA
Film, Video & Photographic Arts 14 NA
Chemistry 13 NA

Learn more about the majors offered at Southern Adventist University along with which ones have the highest average starting salaries.

Online Learning at Southern Adventist

43% Take At Least One Class Online
5% Take All Classes Online

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, 1,168 students took at least one online class at Southern Adventist University. This is a decrease from the 1,179 students who took online classes the previous year.

Year Took at Least One Online Class Took All Classes Online
2020-2021 1,168 137
2019-2020 1,179 123
2018-2019 918 119
2017-2018 870 116
2016-2017 921 145

Learn more about online learning at Southern Adventist University.

If you’re considering Southern Adventist University, here are some more schools you may be interested in knowing more about.

Curious on how these schools stack up against Southern Adventist? 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