Santa Clara University

STUDENT BODY

Santa Clara University has a student population of 8,800, with about 5,200 undergraduate students and 3,600 graduate students. The undergraduate population has a male-to-female ratio of 47 percent to 53 percent, and about 37 percent of undergraduate students identify themselves as persons of color. About 59 percent of undergraduates are from California, with the others coming from throughout the United States and 16 foreign countries. Eighty percent of undergraduate students receive some kind of financial aid—scholarships, grants, or loans.

A little less than half of the undergraduate population lives in University housing, with 95 percent of freshmen and 75 percent of sophomores living on campus. Students experience an average class size of 25, with more than a third of classes having 20 or fewer students and only 1.6 percent of classes having 50 or more students. The student-to-faculty ratio is 13-to-1.

The University’s commitment to learning is expressed in the fact that 93 percent of freshman students advance to the sophomore year, and the percentage of Santa Clara students who graduate is among the highest in the country. The four-year graduation rate for entering freshmen is about 80 percent, with a five-year graduation rate of 84 percent and a six-year graduation rate of 85 percent.