Temple University
Temple University is located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is a public, 4-year or above institution.
From Wikipedia: Temple University (Temple or TU) is a public state-related research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was founded in 1884 by the Baptist minister Russell Conwell and his congregation at the Grace Baptist Church of Philadelphia, then called Baptist Temple. Today, Temple is the second-largest university in Pennsylvania by enrollment and awarded 9,128 degrees in the 2023-24 academic year. It has a worldwide alumni base of 378,012, with 352,175 alumni residing in the United States. The university consists of 17 schools and colleges, including five professional schools, offering over 640+ academic programs and over 160 undergraduate majors. As of 2024, about 30,005 undergraduate, graduate and professional students were enrolled at the university. It is classified among “R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity,” spending $301,395 million on research and development in 2022 according to the National Science Foundation. Temple has 18 NCAA Division 1 varsity sports team and competes as a member of the American Athletic Conference, or The American. Temple’s varsity teams, known as the Temple Owls, have won three team national championships.
Notes
These are items that bear looking into more closely.
- This institution’s six year bachelors graduation rate is 77.9%, so approximately 1/5 of undergrads who enroll do not earn a bachelors degree from here.
Overview of institution
This, and the rest of the page, use info from the most recent year available, generally 2023.
Institution kind: Doctoral Universities: Very High Research Activity
Undergrad program: Professions plus arts & sciences, high graduate coexistence
Graduate program: Research Doctoral: Comprehensive programs, with medical/veterinary school
Enrollment profile: High undergraduate (see more details below)
Average net price for undergrads on financial aid: $23,935 (1.2 times the equivalent 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: Four-year, large, primarily nonresidential
In state percentage: 65% of first year students come from Pennsylvania
In US percentage: 98% of first year students come from the US
Graduation rate (within 6 years) for students seeking a Bachelors: 77.9% (this is what is usually reported as “graduation rate”)
Graduation rate (within 4 years) for students seeking a Bachelors: 62.3%
Percent of students seeking a Bachelors who transfer out of this institution: 11.8%
Student to tenure-stream faculty ratio: 24.6 (undergrads to tenure-stream faculty) [Tenure explained]
Student to faculty ratio: 9.8 (undergrads to all faculty)
Degrees offered: Certificate of less than 1 year, Certificate of at least 12 weeks but less than 1 year, Associate’s degree, Bachelor’s degree, Postbaccalaureate certificate, Master’s degree, Post master’s certificate, Doctor’s degree: research scholarship, Doctor’s degree: professional practice
Schedule: Semester
Institution provides on campus housing: Yes
Dorm capacity: There are enough dorm beds for 5066 students
Freshmen required to live on campus: No
Advanced placement (AP) credits used: Yes
Disabilities: 13.63 percent 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. In fields where there is a common view that higher (or lower) values are better, the best values are in blue, the worst values are in red. If there isn’t a sense of a particular value being better, values are shown in varying shades of green. 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.
- Temple University lists these schools as ones to compare itself within federal IPEDS data, and they do the same back: Florida State University, Pennsylvania State University-Main Campus, Rutgers University-New Brunswick, Iowa State University, University of Cincinnati-Main Campus, Rutgers University-Newark
- Temple University compares itself to these institutions, but not vice versa: University of California-Los Angeles, University of California-Berkeley, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, University of Florida, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, University of Virginia-Main Campus, The University of Texas at Austin, Georgia Institute of Technology-Main Campus, University of California-Irvine, University of California-San Diego, University of Georgia, Texas A & M University-College Station, University of Washington-Seattle Campus, University of Wisconsin-Madison, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, North Carolina State University at Raleigh, University of California-Santa Barbara, University of California-Davis, Ohio State University-Main Campus, University of Maryland-College Park, Purdue University-Main Campus, William & Mary, Auburn University, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Clemson University, University of South Florida, University of Pittsburgh-Pittsburgh Campus, Binghamton University, University of Connecticut, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, Stony Brook University, University of South Carolina-Columbia, University of Massachusetts-Amherst, The University of Tennessee-Knoxville, University of California-Santa Cruz, University of Oklahoma-Norman Campus, Indiana University-Bloomington, University of Missouri-Columbia, Michigan State University, University at Buffalo, University of Delaware, University of California-Riverside, University of Vermont, Colorado School of Mines, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, The University of Alabama, University of Colorado Boulder, University of Iowa, University of Utah, University of Kansas, University of Arizona, University of Kentucky, Washington State University, Miami University-Oxford, University of Oregon, Missouri University of Science and Technology, SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry, Michigan Technological University, University of New Hampshire at Manchester
- These institutions compare themselves to Temple University, but not vice versa: Florida International University, CUNY Bernard M Baruch College, Texas Tech University, University of Houston, California State University-Fullerton, Georgia State University, University of Illinois Chicago, George Mason University, Wayne State University, University of Rhode Island, Indiana University-Indianapolis, Rowan University, University of Nevada-Las Vegas, Kent State University at Kent, University of Missouri-Kansas City, University of Louisville, Northern Arizona University, St. John’s University-New York, Missouri State University-Springfield, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Saint Joseph’s University, Western Michigan University, University of Massachusetts-Boston, Cleveland State University, Augusta University, Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville, Morgan State University, Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, York College of Pennsylvania, Marymount Manhattan College, Norfolk State University, Cedar Crest College, Samuel Merritt University, Graduate Theological Union
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.
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.