Biola University Overview (2024)

by our College Data Analytics Team

Unbiased Factual Guarantee

Want the scoop on Biola University? We’ve put together a comprehensive report on the school that covers what majors Biola offers, how the school ranks, how diverse it is, and much more.

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.

• Rankings
• Admission and Acceptance
• Faculty
• Retention and Graduation Rates
• Diversity
• Cost
• Student Debt
• Average Earnings
• Location
• Majors
• Online Learning
• Related Schools

How Well Is Biola University Ranked?

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.

Biola University was awarded 358 badges in the 2024 rankings. The highest ranked major at the school is multilingual education.

Overall Quality

Biola is ranked #358 out of 2,217 schools in the nation for overall quality on College Factual's 2024 Best Colleges list. This is an improvement over the previous year, when Biola held the #438 spot on the Best Overall Colleges list.

Out of the 168 colleges in California, Biola is ranked at #58.

See all of the rankings for Biola University.

Is It Hard to Get Into Biola?

Acceptance Rate

The acceptance rate at Biola University is a competitive 61%, 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.

Average Test Scores

About 26% of students accepted to Biola submitted their SAT scores. When looking at the 25th through the 75th percentile, SAT Evidence-Based Reading and Writing scores ranged between 563 and 688. Math scores were between 540 and 660.

Biola received ACT scores from 11% of accepted students. When looking at the 25th through the 75th percentile, ACT Composite scores ranged between 22 and 29.

Learn more about Biola University admissions.

Biola University Faculty

Student to Faculty Ratio

With a student to faculty ratio of 13 to 1, Biola 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

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

Retention and Graduation Rates at Biola University

Freshmen Retention Rate

Biola University has a freshmen retention rate of 88%. 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.

Graduation Rate

Students are considered to have graduated on time if they finish their studies within four years. At Biola the on-time graduation rate of first-time, full-time students is 57%. That is great when compared to the national average of 33.3%

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

Biola University Undergraduate Student Diversity

During the 2017-2018 academic year, there were 3,683 undergraduates at Biola with 3,391 being full-time and 292 being part-time.

How Much Does Biola University Cost?

The overall average net price of Biola is $33,269. 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 Biola

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 Biola, 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 Biola, approximately 48% of students took out student loans averaging $6,930 a year. That adds up to $27,720 over four years for those students.

The student loan default rate at Biola is 2.7%. 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 Biola University.

How Much Money Do Biola Graduates Make?

Yearly salaries vary depending on what you major in, but on average, bachelor's degree recipients from Biola make around $47,704 per year during the early years of their employment. That's great news for Biola students since it is 12% more than the average college graduate's salary of $42,485 per year.

See which majors at Biola University make the most money.

Location of Biola University

Biola University is a private not-for-profit institution located in La Mirada, California. La Mirada is a good match for students who enjoy the safety and convenience of the suburbs.

Get more details about the location of Biola University.

Contact details for Biola are given below.

Biola University Majors

During the most recent year for which we have data, students from 53 majors graduated from Biola University. Of these students, 807 received undergraduate degrees and 544 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.

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

Online Learning at Biola

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, 2,792 students took at least one online class at Biola University. This is a decrease from the 5,683 students who took online classes the previous year.

Learn more about online learning at Biola University.

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

• California Lutheran University
• Ouachita Baptist University
• Saint Mary’s College of California
• Washington College
• Westmont College

Curious on how these schools stack up against Biola? 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

• National Center for Education Statistics
• College Scorecard
• Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System
• Image Credit: By Robert J. Boser under License

More about our data sources and methodologies.