by our College Data Analytics Team
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.
Western Washington University was awarded 427 badges in the 2024 rankings. The highest ranked major at the school is teacher education subject specific.
Explore the best ranked schools for the programs you are most interested in.
According to College Factual's 2024 analysis, WWU is ranked #215 out of 2,217 schools in the nation that were analyzed for overall quality. This puts it in the top 10% of all schools in the nation. This is an improvement over the previous year, when WWU held the #299 spot on the Best Overall Colleges list.
Out of the 51 colleges in Washington, WWU is ranked at #5.
Western Washington University has an acceptance rate of 96%, so it is easier to gain admission to this school than some others. Still, the admissions staff will examine your application closely to make sure you're a good fit for WWU.
About 16% of students accepted to WWU submitted their SAT scores. When looking at the 25th through the 75th percentile, SAT Evidence-Based Reading and Writing scores ranged between 560 and 670. Math scores were between 530 and 640.
The student to faculty ratio is often used to estimate how much interaction there is between professors and their students at a college or university. At Western Washington University, this ratio is 17 to 1, which is on par with the national average of 15 to 1. That's not bad at all.
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 Western Washington University is 69%. This is higher than the national average of 47%.
Western Washington University has a freshmen retention rate of 81%. 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.
The on-time graduation rate is the percent of first-time, full-time students who get their bachelor's degree with four years. At WWU this rate is 37%, which is about average when compared to the national rate of 33.3%.
Find out more about the retention and graduation rates at Western Washington University.
During the 2017-2018 academic year, there were 14,194 undergraduates at WWU with 12,622 being full-time and 1,572 being part-time.
| $0-30 K | $30K-48K | $48-75 | $75-110K | $110K + |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $9,979 | $11,357 | $16,819 | $21,763 | $23,101 |
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 WWU, 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 WWU, approximately 30% of students took out student loans averaging $6,437 a year. That adds up to $25,748 over four years for those students.
The student loan default rate at WWU is 1.7%. 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 Western Washington University.
See which majors at Western Washington University make the most money.
Get more details about the location of Western Washington University.
Contact details for WWU are given below.
| Contact Details | |
|---|---|
| Address: | 516 High Street, Bellingham, WA 98225-9008 |
| Phone: | 360-650-3000 |
| Website: | wwu.edu/ |
| Facebook: | http://www.facebook.com/westernwashingtonuniversity |
| Twitter: | https://twitter.com/WWU |
| Most Popular Majors | Bachelor’s Degrees | Average Salary of Graduates |
|---|---|---|
| Natural Resources Conservation | 234 | $25,380 |
| General Psychology | 224 | $27,918 |
| Business Administration & Management | 158 | $42,166 |
| Sociology | 138 | $26,202 |
| Computer Information Systems | 123 | $69,837 |
| Writing Studies | 114 | $22,536 |
| Marketing | 108 | $40,450 |
| Human Services | 106 | $33,003 |
| Finance & Financial Management | 105 | $41,065 |
| Communication & Media Studies | 105 | $32,487 |
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, 1,052 students took at least one online class at Western Washington University. This is an increase from the 903 students who took online classes the previous year.
| Year | Took at Least One Online Class | Took All Classes Online |
|---|---|---|
| 2020-2021 | 1,052 | 225 |
| 2019-2020 | 903 | 142 |
| 2018-2019 | 948 | 212 |
| 2017-2018 | 913 | 185 |
| 2016-2017 | 899 | 150 |
Learn more about online learning at Western Washington University.
If you’re considering Western Washington University, here are some more schools you may be interested in knowing more about.
Curious on how these schools stack up against WWU? 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.