Cuesta College Overview (2024)

by our College Data Analytics Team

Unbiased Factual Guarantee

If you want to know more about Cuesta College, such as what majors does it offer, how diverse it is, how well it ranks, and more, this is your one-stop resource.

If you’re interested in learning more about a particular stat, just click on its tile to go to a new page that covers the topic more in-depth. Also, you can jump to any section of this page by clicking one of the links below.

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

How Well Is Cuesta College Ranked?

2024 Rankings

In its yearly rankings, College Factual analyzes over 2,000 colleges and universities to determine which ones are the best in a variety of categories, such as overall value, quality, diversity, which schools are the best for each major, and much more.

Cuesta College was awarded 259 badges in the 2024 rankings. The highest ranked major at the school is .

Overall Quality

Cuesta College landed the #236 spot in College Factual's 2024 ranking of best overall colleges in the United States. The higher ed experts analyzed 2,217 colleges and universities across the nation to determine this ranking. This puts it in the top 15% of all schools in the nation. This is an improvement over the previous year, when Cuesta College held the #849 spot on the Best Overall Colleges list.

Cuesta College is also ranked #38 out of 168 schools in California.

See all of the rankings for Cuesta College.

Is It Hard to Get Into Cuesta College?

Acceptance Rate

As long as you meet basic requirements, you should not have any trouble getting into Cuesta College since the school has an open admissions policy. Still, be sure to submit any requested materials and that your application is completed in full.

Learn more about Cuesta College admissions.

Cuesta College Faculty

Student to Faculty Ratio

The student to faculty ratio is often used as a measure to gauge how much access students will have to their professors - the lower the number, the better. At Cuesta College, this rate is 25 to 1, which is high when compared to the national average of 15 to 1.

Percent of Full-Time Faculty

When estimating how much access students will have to their teachers, some people like to look at what percentage of faculty members are full time. This is because part-time teachers may not have as much time to spend on campus as their full-time counterparts.

The full-time faculty percentage at Cuesta College is 34%. This is lower than the national average of 47%.

Retention and Graduation Rates at Cuesta College

Freshmen Retention Rate

The freshmen retention rate tells us what percentage of first-year, full-time students choose to continue on to their sophom*ore year at a particular school. The rate at Cuesta College is 66%, which is about average when compared to the national rate of 68%.

Find out more about the retention and graduation rates at Cuesta College.

Cuesta College Undergraduate Student Diversity

During the 2017-2018 academic year, there were 10,093 undergraduates at Cuesta College with 2,987 being full-time and 7,106 being part-time.

How Much Does Cuesta College Cost?

The overall average net price of Cuesta College is $11,063. 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 Cuesta College

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 Cuesta College, see our tuition and fees and room and board pages.

Student Loan Debt

While almost two-thirds of students nationwide take out loans to pay for college, the percentage may be quite different for the school you plan on attending. At Cuesta College, approximately 2% of students took out student loans averaging $6,557 a year. That adds up to $26,228 over four years for those students.

The student loan default rate at Cuesta College is 8.7%. Although this is lower than the national default rate of 10.1%, you'll still want to keep this in mind when taking out student loans.

Get more details about paying for Cuesta College.

How Much Money Do Cuesta College Graduates Make?

The pay for some majors is higher than others, but on average, students who graduate with a bachelor's degree from Cuesta College make about $45,412 a year during their first few years of employment after graduation. That's great news for Cuesta College students since it is 7% more than the average college graduate's salary of $42,485 per year.

See which majors at Cuesta College make the most money.

Location of Cuesta College

Cuesta College is a public institution situated in San Luis Obispo, California. The suburban atmosphere of San Luis Obispo makes it a great place for students who want the amenities of city life without actually living in the middle of a constant hustle and bustle.

Get more details about the location of Cuesta College.

Contact details for Cuesta College are given below.

Cuesta College Majors

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

Online Learning at Cuesta College

Online courses area a great option for busy, working students as well as for those who have scheduling conflicts and want to study on their own time. As time goes by, expect to see more and more online learning options become available.

In 2020-2021, 7,247 students took at least one online class at Cuesta College. This is a decrease from the 9,691 students who took online classes the previous year.

Learn more about online learning at Cuesta College.

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

More about our data sources and methodologies.