OverviewAdmissionsProgramsCostsFinancial AidUndergraduate OutcomesClassroomHousingServicesResearchStudent BodySchool Finances
Overview
Founded in 1993, Capella University is located in a large city with a population of more than 250,000. It is in the Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington MN-WI area.
Highlights
Undergraduate program with the highest reported starting salary ($86K): Computer/IT Management
Largest undergraduate program (1,338): Registered Nursing
Institutional Control
Capella University is a private for-profit organization and is related to other schools.
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Accreditation
Accreditation provides important oversight over a school's instructional practices and institutional stability.
Capella University holds an accreditation from one of the seven regional accreditors, which should ensure that credits earned transfer easily to other schools.
Accreditation History
Higher Learning Commission (Accredited January 1, 1997 - present)
- The next accreditation review is scheduled for August 31, 2023.
Undergraduate Students
Not all students attend their first college full time to completion. While some schools are focused on those that population, many schools focus on transfer and or part time students. What types of of student does this school support.
Full-time first-time students
Full-time transfer students
Part-time first-time students
Part-time transfer students
Admissions
Open Admissions
Capella University is an open admissions school and accepts any student who applies.
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Admissions Details
Here are some important dates and little tidbits. Please double-check this information on the Capella University's webpage for the most up-to-date and accurate answers! We update this information with each school's annual reporting, but information can change unexpectedly. Select any item to view the details.
Admissions Criteria & Qualifications
Application Fee & Common App
Freshman application dates
Transfer application information
Credits accepted from new students
Programs
Capella University program offerings
What award level are you pursuing?
Bachelor's Degree
Select a degree to see the details, or use the sankey below to explore the options.
Select a degree
Order degrees by.
Program Size (Completions)
Healthcare
Business
Social Sciences
Quantitative/Technology
Community Services
Costs
Undergraduate costs
Here's a quick summary of costs to attend Capella University. You will find the most up-to-date information at their website for admissions.
View
All
Charge
Annual fees
Annual tuition
Estimated books and supplies
Miscellaneous (living off campus)
Miscellaneous (living with family)
Off-campus room and board
Per-credit charges
Cost
$392
$14,148
$432
$930
$930
$5,265
$393
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Historic Annual Costs
See how this school's published costs have changed over the years, and how their cost trends compare with other private schools.
Published costs may have little to do with what you actually pay
It's important to remember that a school's published costs may not be indicative of what it will actually cost to attend. Time magazine wrote about this in their article Yes, you can get a college to cut its tuition price. Nonetheless, this inflation-adjusted look at the historic annual costs for tuition, fees, books, and supplies can give you an idea of the costs you might expect in the coming years. Comparing the total costs inclusive of room and board (if applicable) with the annual net price estimates in the previous tab will help you determine the financial aid package to expect.
Private and public universities' charges are difficult to compare due to the in-state and out-of-state price differences of public universities, and therefore we only compare Capella University to other private schools within your chosen context group.
Undergraduate tuition, fees, books, and supplies over time
Financial Aid
Student Financial Need
How likely are you to get a scholarship if you attend? This section covers the likelihood that students with or without need are receiving financial aid. You can see this data for the full-time degree-seeking undergraduate student population as a whole or for full-time freshmen only.
Choose a student group
Full-time undergraduates
Full-time freshmen
Context: Need met for full-time undergraduates
Capella University uses federal and institutional methodology to determine if a student needs aid. According to their benchmark, they believe that 90% of full-time degree-seeking undergraduate need has been met. In general, the funds that close the gap between the cost of attendance (COA) and the expected family contribution (EFC) is filled by student loans, but some schools distribute enough financial aid to make sure this is not necessary. Visit the financial aid website to explore what promises Capella Universitymakes.
Overview of student need and resources used (Full-time degree-seeking undergraduate students)
The average annual financial aid package received by full-time degree-seeking undergraduates who were identified to have need totals , of which on average is in the form of loans.
Student financial need
Have need
No need
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Financial aid overview
Understanding the rules and process that determine who gets financial aid can be intimidating. Here are some quick links to help:
- Visit Capella University's Net Price Calculator for the most accurate estimate of your anticipated costs. Every school publishes a Net Price Calculator that does its best to give you a fair estimate of what you might expect to pay. Many calculators consider your high school record as part of the calculation. This will be far more accurate than any of the averages or published tuition values that you see here.
- FederalStudentAid, a government site that will walk you through the federal financial aid process. There are a number of kinds of student loans and other aid, and this site can walk you through all of the choices you will need to make.
Required Forms
Loan Programs
Need-based Scholarships Available
Not so much?
Undergraduate Outcomes
Graduation Rate
Approximately 2% of undergraduate students were full-time with about 0% of them attending college for the first time. In the last reporting year, 11% of students, including those who were part-time or transfer students, received a degree within 8 years.
Time to complete
4 years
6 years
8 years
Context: Graduation rate
These numbers reflect eight-year graduation rates for all degrees at the colleges and universities in your chosen context group. This reporting is for undergraduate students inclusive of transfer students and full/part-time students.
Loan Status
This donut shows the percentage of students who are in good standing (green) in repaying any federal student loans five years after leaving Capella University.
Status of loans
Closed (fully paid)
Currently paying
Deferred for miliary or school
Suspended (usually for hardship)
More than 90 days late in paying
In default
Another status not released
Context: Loans with good standing
About 66% of the context schools have better performance, suggesting that Capella University's alumni earnings-to-debt ratios are low compared to the context schools' alumni.
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Are students graduating on time?
Let us tell you all about low graduation rates!
Across the country, graduation rates are surprisingly low. In fact, Forbes Magazine suggests that they are unacceptably low. However, from another point of view, sometimes graduation rates simply reflect the relative preparation of the students who enter. Colleges with a mission to help people coming from less advantaged backgrounds, such as first-generation and low-income students, may have low graduation rates despite relatively strong outcomes for students who face many obstacles to success. Without the context provided in these views of completion rates, it can be tricky to separate predatory schools that take financial advantage of under-prepared students from those that are actively seeking to encourage and help those students.
For the consumer choosing a school, once you have narrowed your list to those schools that you can afford and that seem likely to admit you, consider the outcome measures in this section and choose the specific measures that best describe your plans. Very simply, schools with high graduation rates and high loan repayment rates will likely give you the best opportunity to succeed.
Context: the impact of wealth and transfer status on degree completion
We took a close look lagging success for students with financial need in a case study. Here's a chance to compare schools based on student successes with a better appreciation of how circumstances may impact success. One word of caution: the statistics for some categories may consist of only a handful of students -- see the details by hovering or long-pressing on the bars.
Full-time first-time students
Full-time transfer students
Part-time first-time students
Part-time transfer students
Choose a student group
Full-time first-time students
Full-time transfer students
Part-time first-time students
Part-time transfer students
Percentage with Pell Grants
Years after enrolling.
4
6
8
Full-time first-time students who received a bachelor's degree within 8 years after enrolling
Context and trends: Repayment Rate
How much progress do you think you'll be able to make towards paying down your college loans seven years after leaving school? In our research, we discovered that a surprisingly large number of students don't default on their loans, but also aren't making progress in paying down their principal amount. The percentages here count alumni who have decreased their loan amounts by at least $1.
Years after leaving school.
7
5
3
Context and trends: are the loan default rates as small as possible?
The default rate is the percentage of students who are already delinquent on their loans within three years of leaving the school. If a school has a high default rate, that sends an alarm out that the students' educations are not sufficient to earn enough to repay those loans. Read below for details on the typical loan burden, and keep in mind that a low default rate may be more important than loan amounts in predicting your future success.
Loan burden
At Capella University, 50% of full-time degree-seeking freshmen receive federal student loans, averaging $6,839 each in just the freshman year. We have much more details about the full loan burden students experience in our Cost and Financial Aid Section.
Context: Percentage of freshmen with federal loans
Context: Average freshman federal loan amount
Not so much?
Classroom Experience
Student attention at Capella University
Schools are required to report the ratio of students per instructor, but look for a small number of students for every full-time instructor as your best indicator of personal attention and a modern well-integrated curriculum.
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Full-time and long-term instructors at Capella University
Full-time faculty are mostly likely to be on campus and available for interaction, and to craft up-to-date courses and programs. Capella University has 14% full-time instructors, and 93% of the context schools have a higher percentage of full-time instructors. Faculty with multi-year contracts provide additional stability and commitment to the school and its students.Within the full-time instructors at Capella University, none have multi-year employment contracts. Of the context schools, 72% have instructors with multi-year contracts.
Full-time instructors
Long-term instructors
Not so much?
Faculty Diversity
Here's an opportunity to explore the faculty's diversity. For many schools, attracting a diverse teaching faculty can be a challenge. It's important to judge their success with the reality check of what their peer schools have accomplished.
Number of full-time instructors
The chart shows male instructors to the left, and female to the right, with the races/origins included along the bars. Select the context graph to see how this diversity profile compares to the schools that interest you.
Housing
Activities and Services
Special academic opportunities
- Accelerated Degree
- Credit for advanced placement
- Distance learning
- Double-major allowed
- Formal adult program
- Independent study courses
- Internships
- Orientation program
- Part-time degree programs
- Services for learning disabilities
- Summer session
Undergraduate services offered
- Academic/career counseling services
- Employment services for current students
- Placement services for program completers
Programs for Veterans
If you are a veteran, it's worth digging around to find a military-friendly campus. We think this article about how colleges might help veterans might be a good starting point for questions to ask the Admissions office before you choose to attend. It's also good to be aware that many for-profit schools are behaving as predators, hungry for GI Bill dollars. Watching out for those schools is no different for veterans than for all students: judge very critically using our "Student Satisfaction and Success" tab for undergraduate programs. We wish we had the same data to support graduate programs; however, we think the undergraduate data is a good starting point for judging overall quality.
- Credit for Military Training
- Dedicated point of contact for support services for veterans, military servicemembers, and their families
- Member of Servicemembers Opportunity Colleges
- Yellow Ribbon Program
Research
The library is the backbone of academic learning and research
A rigorous academic program requires that students and faculty alike are engaging in independent research, and that activity requires strong library support. You can get some useful information here:
- How strong and how balanced between traditional physical books and easily-accessed (but expensive) electronic journals and other resources is this library?
- How much is this library borrowing from other libraries? The number of interlibrary loans received can indicate the school's commitment to getting the resources on-campus researchers need, and also of the research activity on campus.
- How big a resource is this library to other libraries? A large number of outgoing interlibrary loans speaks highly of the value of its content.
The presence of a library in and of itself is a good thing. Increasingly, libraries are comfortable and inviting spaces for individual and group study sessions. Librarians can be incredibly friendly guides in your quest to find materials that aid your learning.
Comparison of library resources per student
How do the per-student library resources at Capella University compare to other schools?
Comparison of library loans per student
A small library could make up for a small collection by allowing a large number of interlibrary loans to be received. An excellent library can show its strength by its number of loans given.
Research funding: the best indicator of post-baccalaureate academic rigor
Any school that reports at least $150,000 in research and development expenditures in a given year should have submitted out the Higher Education Research and Development (HERD) survey to the National Science Foundation (NSF). We did not find HERD data for $Capella University, so there would at most modest graduate-level academic scholarship campus-wide.
Student Body
Undergraduate Study Types
About 14% of undergraduate students are full-time. About 100% of undergraduate students take all of their courses via distance education, while another 0% take some courses online.
Undergraduate Full-time
Undergraduate Online classes
Context: Student body size
Capella University enrolled 61,132 students over the past academic year. The the student body size is larger than 99% of the context schools.
Undergraduate student gender
Is the gender balance of Capella University undergraduate students important to you? You can see the breakdown in this donut chart.
Gender
Men
Women
Undergraduate student race/origin
Capella University reports that 32% of undergraduate students are minority, which is near the middle of the context schools. Similarly, this school's 0.4% of international students is near the middle proportion of international students within the context schools.
Race/Origin
White
Black
Pacific Islander
Hispanic
Asian
American Indian
Multiracial
Not Reported
International
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Context: Gender Balance
It is very difficult for many types of schools to achieve a gender balance, and this context is valuable in evaluating the balance at Capella University.
Context: Percentage of women
With 76% women undergraduate students, Capella University has a higher percentage of women than 89% of context schools.
Context: Undergraduate student race/origin
Here is how Capella University compares to the rest of the context group in terms of diversity in the student race and origin.
Freshman residences
A high proportion of international and out-of-state students speaks to reputation and offers an opportunity for diverse interactions in and out of class.
Freshman residence
In-state
Out-of-state
International
Not Reported
Undergraduate student age distribution
The age distribution at a school can tell you a lot about its mission. If you're looking for a traditional undergraduate experience, you may prefer to see students who are mostly younger than 25 (lighter shades), but if you want support as a returning student, a large number of students 25 and older (darker shades) may better suit your needs.
Age range
18-19
20-21
22-24
25-29
30-34
35-39
40-49
50-64
65 and over
Unknown
School Finances
Capella University: What its budget can tell you about classroom quality
Where a school spends and collects its money can suggest a lot about the educational experience it offers. The tabs below offer a look at spending that is important for the quality of your experience if you attend.
Instructional spending
Student services spending
Context and trends: Instructional expenditures per student
Instructional expenses are primarily the salary and benefits paid to the heart of a school: its full-time instructors. High expenditures in this area suggest care in hiring enough highly qualified full-time faculty to provide personal attention and up-to-date subject-area excellence.
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Does incoming revenue consistently cover expenses?
Capella University is a private for-profit school, meaning that its annual goal is to make a profit for its shareholders. The other types of schools are public or not-for-profit, and profit is not a goal.
Total revenue and expenses by category
We divided revenue and expenses for Capella University into categories to give some insight to what may have influenced peaks and ditches in the chart above. The purple shades correspond most directly to student education. The blue shades, auxiliary expenses and revenue, are often related to room and board. We show investment gains and losses in apricot.
Investment gains
Tuition and fees revenue
Other revenue
Instructional expenses
Student services expenses
Academic & instructional support, student services expenses
Academic support expenses
Institutional support expenses
Other expenses
