by our College Data Analytics TeamCollege Factual began publishing its yearly rankings to help students identify graduate schools that put a high emphasis on educational quality as well as helping students succeed. Our methodology places a high weight on things such as post-graduation wages, time to graduate, and student-per-faculty ratio. Post-graduation debt, faculty and staff diversity, and other factors are also taken into account.
In College Factual's 2024 ranking of the Best Master's Degree Schools in the U.S., Western Carolina University landed the #688 spot out of the 1149 schools analyzed for this list.
For the Best Master's Degree Schools in North Carolina, WCU came in at #13.
There were 676 college and universities analyzed in the 2024 Best Doctorate Schools in the United States ranking, and WCU took the #517 spot on the list.
WCU also ranked #15 for Best Doctorate Degree Schools in North Carolina.
The total graduate student population at WCU is made up of 67.5% women and 32.5% men. Note that these percentages may differ for certain degree programs.
About 17.0% of the graduate students who attend WCU are from a racial-ethnic minority group*. Americans aren't the only ones who appreciate the graduate programs at WCU. Around 2.5% of graduate students are international. For more details on graduate school diversity at the school, check out the chart below. If you click on it, you'll be taken to a page with more details.
The average graduate full-time tuition and fees is shown in the table below.
| In-State | Out-of-State | |
|---|---|---|
| Tuition | $4,435 | $14,842 |
| Fees | $3,045 | $3,045 |
Master's degree recipients from WCU earn an average salary of $52,188 during the early years of their career. Unfortunately for those graduates, that figure is about 11% lower than the national average of $58,425.
The average early-career salary for doctorate degree recipients from WCU is $65,460. Unfortunately for those graduates, that figure is about 13% lower than the national average of $75,260.
Get more details about the location of Western Carolina University.
Contact details for WCU are given below.
| Contact Details | |
|---|---|
| Address: | Highway 107, Cullowhee, NC 28723-9646 |
| Phone: | 828-227-7100 |
| Website: | www.wcu.edu/ |
| Facebook: | http://www.facebook.com/WesternCarolinaUniversity |
| Twitter: | http://twitter.com/WCU |
In 2020-2021, 63.3% of the graduate students at Western Carolina University took at least one class online. Roughly 42.1% of all grad students took courses exclusively online.
The only degree programs listed here are those in which master’s degrees were awarded in 2020-2021.
Just like the master’s degree programs, only programs that had doctorate degrees awarded in 2020-2021 are shown here.
| Doctorate Degree Program | Annual Graduates |
|---|---|
| Educational Administration | 16 |
| Nursing | 17 |
| Rehabilitation & Therapeutic Professions | 32 |
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.