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.
University of South Carolina - Columbia was awarded 112 badges in the 2025 rankings. The highest ranked major at the school is health professions.
Explore the best ranked schools for the programs you are most interested in.
UofSC landed the #99 spot in College Factual's 2025 ranking of best overall colleges in the United States. The higher ed experts analyzed 2,152 colleges and universities across the nation to determine this ranking. 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 UofSC held the #152 spot on the Best Overall Colleges list.
Out of the 45 colleges in South Carolina, UofSC is ranked at #1.
See all of the rankings for University of South Carolina - Columbia.
The acceptance rate at University of South Carolina - Columbia is a competitive 64%, so make sure you take your application seriously when putting it together. Even leaving out a minor detail could be a reason to move you to the rejection pile.
About 33% of students accepted to UofSC submitted their SAT scores. When looking at the 25th through the 75th percentile, SAT Evidence-Based Reading and Writing scores ranged between 600 and 690. Math scores were between 580 and 690.
Learn more about University of South Carolina - Columbia admissions.
With a student to faculty ratio of 18 to 1, University of South Carolina - Columbia 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 University of South Carolina - Columbia is 74%. This is higher than the national average of 47%.
University of South Carolina - Columbia has a freshmen retention rate of 90%. 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 UofSC 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 University of South Carolina - Columbia.
During the 2017-2018 academic year, there were 27,271 undergraduates at UofSC with 26,174 being full-time and 1,097 being part-time.
| $0-30 K | $30K-48K | $48-75 | $75-110K | $110K + |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $12,262 | $14,677 | $19,783 | $23,389 | $25,312 |
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 UofSC, 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 UofSC, approximately 48% of students took out student loans averaging $9,631 a year. That adds up to $38,524 over four years for those students.
The student loan default rate at UofSC is 1.0%. 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 paying for University of South Carolina - Columbia.
See which majors at University of South Carolina - Columbia make the most money.
Get more details about the location of University of South Carolina - Columbia.
Contact details for UofSC are given below.
| Contact Details | |
|---|---|
| Address: | Columbia-Campus, Columbia, SC 29208 |
| Phone: | 803-777-7000 |
| Website: | www.sc.edu/ |
| Most Popular Majors | Bachelor’s Degrees | Average Salary of Graduates |
|---|---|---|
| Public Health | 495 | $31,756 |
| Business Administration & Management | 448 | $47,993 |
| Nursing | 418 | $73,872 |
| General Biology | 403 | $28,035 |
| Management Sciences & Quantitative Methods | 374 | $68,804 |
| Child Development & Psychology | 345 | $29,350 |
| Health & Physical Education | 341 | $40,702 |
| International Business | 339 | $70,992 |
| Marketing | 335 | $52,374 |
| Criminal Justice & Corrections | 228 | $35,781 |
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, 21,755 students took at least one online class at University of South Carolina - Columbia. This is an increase from the 20,024 students who took online classes the previous year.
| Year | Took at Least One Online Class | Took All Classes Online |
|---|---|---|
| 2022-2023 | 21,755 | 3,171 |
| 2021-2022 | 20,024 | 3,416 |
| 2020-2021 | 33,092 | 17,648 |
| 2018-2019 | 9,708 | 1,609 |
Learn more about online learning at University of South Carolina - Columbia.
If you’re considering University of South Carolina - Columbia, here are some more schools you may be interested in knowing more about.
Curious on how these schools stack up against UofSC? 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.