Rio Salado College
Rio Salado College is located in Tempe, Arizona. It is a public, 4-year or above institution.
From Wikipedia: Rio Salado College is a public community college headquartered in Tempe, Arizona United States. It is part of the Maricopa County Community College District and accredited by The Higher Learning Commission. It offers associate degree and certificate programs in online, in-person, and hybrid formats.
Notes
These are items that bear looking into more closely.
- This institution’s full-time undergraduate enrollment has tended to decrease over time.
Overview of institution
This, and the rest of the page, use info from the most recent year available, generally 2023.
Institution kind: Associate’s Colleges: Mixed Transfer/Career & Technical-High Nontraditional
Undergrad program: Associate’s Colleges: Mixed Transfer/Career & Technical
Graduate program: Not classified (Exclusively Undergraduate)
Enrollment profile: Exclusively undergraduate two-year (see more details below)
Average net price for undergrads on financial aid: $6,834 . This is 40% the average cost of Harvard.
Actual price for your family: Go here to see what your family may be asked to pay. It can be MUCH lower than the average price but also higher for some.
Size and setting: Two-year, large
In state percentage: 85% of first year students come from Arizona
In US percentage: 97% of first year students come from the US
Student to tenure-stream faculty ratio: 100.2 (undergrads to tenure-stream faculty) [Tenure explained]
Student to faculty ratio: 100.2 (undergrads to all faculty)
Degrees offered: Certificate of less than 1 year, Certificate of less than 12 weeks, Certificate of at least 12 weeks but less than 1 year, Certificate of at least 1 year but less than 2 years, Associate’s degree, Bachelor’s degree
Schedule: Semester
Institution provides on campus housing: No
Freshmen required to live on campus: No
Advanced placement (AP) credits used: Yes
Disabilities: 3 percent or less of undergrads are registered as having disabilities.
Map
Comparisons
The sections below show this institution compared with others. The ones listed are ones it has identified as peers, who consider themselves peers, and/or who the federal government considers peers. If a comparison school has the same value as the focal school, its cell is grayed out. Arrows show where there is a signficant trend over time for a school. You can swipe across the table to see more of it; the focal school column is always visible.
- Rio Salado College lists these schools as ones to compare itself within federal IPEDS data, and they do the same back: Glendale Community College, Sinclair Community College, Ivy Tech Community College, San Jacinto Community College, Milwaukee Area Technical College
- Rio Salado College compares itself to these institutions, but not vice versa: Bakersfield College, Valencia College, CUNY Borough of Manhattan Community College, Mt San Antonio College, Broward College, Pasadena City College, Santa Monica College, Long Beach City College, Portland Community College, Hillsborough Community College, Suffolk County Community College, El Camino Community College District, El Paso Community College, Palm Beach State College, Fullerton College, Nassau Community College, Fresno City College, De Anza College, Florida State College at Jacksonville, Salt Lake Community College, College of DuPage, CUNY Kingsborough Community College, Cerritos College, Orange Coast College, Palomar College, East Los Angeles College, Diablo Valley College, San Joaquin Delta College, Cuyahoga Community College District, Southwestern College, Chaffey College, Community College of Rhode Island, Santa Rosa Junior College, Riverside City College, Sierra College, Saddleback College, Santa Barbara City College, Bergen Community College, Sacramento City College, Mesa Community College, College of the Canyons, Community College of Philadelphia, Indian River State College, Modesto Junior College, Front Range Community College, Monroe Community College, Los Angeles Pierce College, Eastern Florida State College, San Diego Mesa College, Glendale Community College, Grossmont College, College of Lake County, Rio Hondo College, Joliet Junior College, Brookdale Community College, William Rainey Harper College, Grand Rapids Community College, Moraine Valley Community College, Community College of Allegheny County, Moorpark College, Foothill College, Los Angeles Valley College, Allan Hancock College, San Antonio College, Los Angeles City College, Southwestern Illinois College, Los Angeles Trade Technical College, Illinois Central College, Phoenix College, Cabrillo College, Oakton College, Camden County College, San Diego City College, Triton College, Laney College, Owens Community College, City Colleges of Chicago-Harry S Truman College, Community College of Baltimore County, Taft College, Montgomery College, Collin County Community College District, Des Moines Area Community College, Johnson County Community College, Tidewater Community College, Tulsa Community College, Central New Mexico Community College, Kirkwood Community College, Metropolitan Community College Area, Oakland Community College, Madison Area Technical College, Lansing Community College, Washtenaw Community College, Georgia State University-Perimeter College, Wayne County Community College District
- These institutions compare themselves to Rio Salado College, but not vice versa: Anne Arundel Community College, Northwest Vista College, Palo Alto College, Delgado Community College, St Philip’s College, College of Western Idaho, Central Texas College, Western Iowa Tech Community College, Coconino Community College, Carrington College-Mesa, Carrington College-Phoenix North, Carrington College-Tucson, Excelsior University
Enrollment
General
Teaching
Tenure track faculty are those who are eligible for tenure. This includes both pre-tenure and tenured faculty. Once faculty get tenure, they are (generally) protected from being fired for intellectual reasons, helping to ensure their freedom in teaching and research. They can still lose their positions for misconduct, financial problems, not fulfilling their duties, or other reasons.
Non-tenure track faculty are not eligible for tenure. Some are hired one semester at a time, some have multi-year contracts. They typically have a higher teaching load than tenure track faculty, leaving less time for research or other creative endeavors. They are also easier to fire than tenured faculty. Sometimes they are external experts (a noted musician, a former senator) who are hired to teach some classes without the expected permanence of a tenure-track position.
Note that this chart uses US federal demographic data: it only has two genders and a specified set of ethnicities and races.
Having a low student to faculty ratio is considered a good thing by many, as it can mean more individual attention.
Geography
This has information on the location of the institution. See the about page for more information on what the metrics are and how they are calculated. The goal is to neutrally provide information: for example, some individuals want stringent gun control in an area, some want the opposite: the categories are meant to be descriptive.
Financial Aid
Graduation
Note these are bachelors graduation rates in six years, not four (this is standard). Sample sizes can be small for some demographic groups with few individuals in a school, leading to large year-to-year fluctuations and often extreme values for those groups (if there are two individuals in the class with a given identity, the possible graduation rates are 0%, 50%, or 100% depending on whether zero, one, or both students graduate within six years).
Library
Libraries are changing rapidly. Note that how institutions count digital collections may vary.
Diversity
The US Census Bureau has a diversity index that goes from 0 to 1. In their words, “A 0-value indicates that everyone in the population has the same racial and ethnic characteristics. A value close to 1 indicates that everyone in the population has different racial and ethnic characteristics.” This uses their formula, but with the resolution available for the federal IPEDS data (which does not separate for a given demographic group whether members identify as Hispanic or not). This metric is about heterogeneity within the population, not the proportion of the population that comes from historically excluded groups.
Following the practice of the census, the index is multiplied by 100 to give the percentage probability a random pair of individuals will have a different background. Most institutions argue that diversity is a benefit, so by default a higher number is listed as better, but there may be cases where this measure does not reflect the mission of a college (for example, 70% of the students at a tribal college or university may be American Indian: that could be low-scoring by this metric but should not be read as “bad” given the institution’s mission).
These numbers are based on the most recent year available, generally 2023, which predates effects of the US Supreme Court’s striking down of affirmative action. This has often changed, sometimes dramatically, the incoming student demographics at some institutions.
Overall diversity
Freshman profile
Demographic data for first time degree-seeking students. Note that this uses US federal demographic data: it only has two genders and a specified set of ethnicities and races.
Freshman geography
Test scores
SAT scores
ACT scores
Majors
This presents information on the number of majors and the median earnings one and five years after graduation for people who got a degree from this institution in that field. The earnings are for those who are working and not enrolled in further education. The earnings data (from the federal college scorecard) also has information on earnings for those categorized as ‘MALE’ and ‘NOMALE’ – for readability, these are recategorized here as “Men” and “Women”, respectively, which adopts the gender binary used in other federal data. “W/M earnings ratio” is the median earnings of women divided by men, as a percentage.