Colorado School of Mines Overview

Colorado School of Mines is a public institution situated in Golden, Colorado. Golden is a good match for students who enjoy the safety and convenience of the suburbs.

What Is Colorado School of Mines Known For?

• The 2% student loan default rate at Mines is better than the national rate of 10.1%. That's a good sign that you may be able to pay off student loans easier than your peers at other schools can.
• Although it may not be available for every major, the doctor's degree is the highest award a student can attain at Mines.
• In 2017-2018, 99% of the faculty were full-time.
• After graduation, Mines bachelor's degree recipients go on to jobs where they make $84,900 a year. That's about 108% more than their peers at other schools.

Colorado School of Mines Rankings

We have ranked Mines as #112 out of 2,587 colleges and universities in the country in our 2022 Best Colleges list. This puts it in the top 5% of all schools in the nation. Mines also holds the #1 spot on the Best Colleges in Colorado ranking.

Our rankings are based on an outcomes-based approach rather than subjective ones used by other media outlets. As such, we utilize data from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) and the College Scorecard, among other sources. Visit our rankings and methodology section to learn more.

Mines has also been awarded the following overall awards by our latest rankings.

Rank	Ranking Name	Share
#51	Best Doctor’s Degree Schools	Tweet It - Post It
#101	Best Graduate Certificate Schools	Tweet It - Post It
#105	Best Bachelor’s Degree Schools	Tweet It - Post It
#144	Best Master’s Degree Schools	Tweet It - Post It

Program Level Awards

These are highlights of some of the most noteworthy awards granted to specific programs at Mines.

Rank	Ranking Name	Share
#1	Best Metallurgical Engineering Master’s Degree Schools	Tweet It - Post It
#1	Best Geoscience Engineering Bachelor’s Degree Schools	Tweet It - Post It
#1	Best Mining Engineering Bachelor’s Degree Schools	Tweet It - Post It
#1	Best Biological Engineering Master’s Degree Schools	Tweet It - Post It
#2	Best Petroleum Engineering Bachelor’s Degree Schools	Tweet It - Post It
#6	Best Engineering Physics Bachelor’s Degree Schools	Tweet It - Post It
#38	Best Social Sciences Master’s Degree Schools	Tweet It - Post It
#51	Best Engineering Bachelor’s Degree Schools	Tweet It - Post It
#59	Best Mathematics & Statistics Bachelor’s Degree Schools	Tweet It - Post It
#113	Best Computer & Information Sciences Bachelor’s Degree Schools	Tweet It - Post It

Awards From Around the Web

The following table lists some notable awards Mines has earned from around the web.

Rank	Ranking Name	Source
#1	Best Geoscience Engineering Schools	College Factual
#1	Best Metallurgical Engineering Schools	College Factual
#1	Best Mining Engineering Schools	College Factual
#1	Best Mining & Mineral Engineering Schools	College Factual
#114	Best Computer & Information Sciences Schools	College Factual
#115	Best Business Schools	Business Degree Central

Where Is Colorado School of Mines?

Contact details for Mines are given below.

	Contact Details
Address:	1500 Illinois St, Golden, CO 80401
Phone:	303-273-3000
Facebook:	https://www.facebook.com/ColoradoSchoolofMines
Twitter:	https://twitter.com/coschoolofmines

How Do I Get Into Mines?

You can apply to Mines online at: www.mines.edu/undergraduate-admissions/apply/

Admission Requirements for Mines

Submission	Required?
High School GPA	required
High School Rank	recommended
High School Transcript	required
College Prep Program	required
Recommendations	considered but not required
SAT or ACT Scores	considered but not required
TOEFL	required

How Hard Is It To Get Into Mines?

Mines has an acceptance rate of 55%, which means it is fairly selective. Take that into account when you are working on your application and gathering requested materials. Do what you can to stand out among other applicants.

Approximately 60% of accepted students are men and 40% are women. The acceptance rate for men is 49%, and the acceptance rate for women is 68%.

Average Test Scores

About 83% of students accepted to Mines submitted their SAT scores. When looking at the 25th through the 75th percentile, SAT Evidence-Based Reading and Writing scores ranged between 620 and 700. Math scores were between 650 and 740.

Mines received ACT scores from 52% of accepted students. When looking at the 25th through the 75th percentile, ACT English scores ranged between 26 and 34. Math scores were between 27 and 33. Composite scores were between 28 and 33.

Can I Afford Colorado School of Mines?

The overall average net price of Mines is $45,662. The affordability of the school largely depends on your financial need since net price varies by income group.

The net price is calculated by adding tuition, room, board and other costs and subtracting financial aid.

Student Loan Debt

It's not uncommon for college students to take out loans to pay for school. In fact, almost 66% of students nationwide depend at least partially on loans. At Mines, approximately 42% of students took out student loans averaging $9,165 a year. That adds up to $36,660 over four years for those students.

The student loan default rate at Mines is 1.7%. This is significantly lower than the national default rate of 10.1%, which is a good sign that you'll be able to pay back your student loans.

Colorado School of Mines Undergraduate Student Diversity

There are 5,200 undergraduate students at Mines, with 4,918 being full-time and 282 being part-time.

There are also 1,544 graduate students at the school.

Gender Diversity

Of the 4,918 full-time undergraduates at Mines, 69% are male and 31% are female.

Racial-Ethnic Diversity

The racial-ethnic breakdown of Colorado School of Mines students is as follows.

Race/Ethnicity	Number of Grads
Asian	235
Black or African American	44
Hispanic or Latino	582
White	3,431
International Students	216
Other Races/Ethnicities	410

Geographic Diversity

Colorado students aren't the only ones who study at Colorado School of Mines. At this time, 47 states are represented by the student population at the school.

Over 79 countries are represented at Mines. The most popular countries sending students to the school are China, India, and Saudi Arabia.

Online Learning at Colorado School of Mines

In 2019-2020, 660 students took at least one online class at the school.

The following chart shows how the online learning population at Mines has changed over the last few years.

This school is the 34th most popular in Colorado for online learning according to the online graduations recorded by the Department of Education for the academic year 2019-2020.

Online Affordability Rankings of Mines

The following table shows how Mines is ranked for affordability for both in-state and out-of-state students among colleges and universities that are not mostly online.

Major	Tuition for In-State Students	Tuition for Out-of-State Students
Systems Engineering	#45	#39

Online Growth Rankings of Mines

The average growth rate over the last four years of online students at Colorado School of Mines was 216.6%. This is the #264 largest growth rate of all schools that are only partially online. This refers to all students at Mines regardless of major.

When we speak of partially online, we are referring to schools whose online population is less than 50% of its total student body. Mostly online refers to those with online populations greater than or equal to 50%.

Colorado School of Mines Undergraduate Concentrations

The table below shows the number of awards for each concentration.

Major	Bachelor’s	Graduate Certificate	Master’s	Doctor’s	TOTAL
Mechanical Engineering	313	0	56	13	382
Computer Science	125	0	52	2	179
Chemical Engineering	104	0	14	14	132
Petroleum Engineering	84	0	17	12	113
Civil Engineering	67	0	34	5	106
Electrical Engineering	77	0	19	10	106
Geoscience Engineering	55	0	19	15	89
Metallurgical Engineering	43	0	11	10	64
Environmental Engineering	46	0	8	0	54
Geological & Earth Sciences	0	0	40	12	52
Engineering Physics	51	0	0	0	51
Applied Mathematics	25	0	21	2	48
Engineering-Related Fields	0	0	36	0	36
Biomedical Engineering	36	0	0	0	36
Mining Engineering	14	0	9	7	30
Economics	6	0	14	4	24
Materials Engineering	0	0	15	8	23
Chemistry	10	0	2	4	16
Systems Engineering	0	8	4	0	12
Physics	0	0	7	5	12
Manufacturing Engineering	0	1	9	0	10
Nuclear Engineering	0	0	5	2	7
Biological Engineering	0	0	3	0	3
General Engineering	2	0	0	1	3
Behavioral Science	0	0	2	0	2
Robotics Engineering	0	0	0	0	0
Mathematics	0	0	0	0	0
Data Analytics	0	0	0	0	0
Data Science	0	0	0	0	0
TOTAL	1,058	9	397	126	1,590

References

*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.

• College Factual
• National Center for Education Statistics
• Image Credit: By Cperko under License

More about our data sources and methodologies.