Dakota State University Overview

Located in Madison, South Dakota, Dakota State University is a public institution. Madison is a good match for students who enjoy small-town life.

What Is Dakota State University Known For?

• Although it may not be available for every major, the doctor's degree is the highest award a student can attain at Dakota State.
• In 2017-2018, 72% of the faculty were full-time.

Dakota State University Rankings

Dakota State landed the #398 spot in our 2022 ranking of best colleges. We analyzed 2,587 colleges and universities across the nation to determine this ranking.

These rankings may look different from those published by other outlets, because we use an outcomes-based approach rather than a subjective one. We get our data from a number of places, including the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) and the College Scorecard. For more information, check out our rankings and methodology page.

Dakota State has been awarded the following overall awards by our latest rankings.

Rank	Ranking Name	Share
#22	Best Undergraduate Certificate Schools	Tweet It - Post It
#78	Best Associate Degree Schools	Tweet It - Post It

Program Level Awards

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

Rank	Ranking Name	Share
#1	Best Health/Medical Admin Services Associate Degree Schools	Tweet It - Post It
#10	Best Information Technology Bachelor’s Degree Schools	Tweet It - Post It
#29	Best Special Education Bachelor’s Degree Schools	Tweet It - Post It
#35	Best Allied Health Professions Associate Degree Schools	Tweet It - Post It
#40	Best Health Professions Associate Degree Schools	Tweet It - Post It
#53	Best Teacher Education Grade Specific Bachelor’s Degree Schools	Tweet It - Post It
#56	Best Computer & Information Sciences Associate Degree Schools	Tweet It - Post It
#68	Best Business Administration & Management Associate Degree Schools	Tweet It - Post It
#104	Best Education Bachelor’s Degree Schools	Tweet It - Post It
#121	Best Business, Management & Marketing Associate Degree Schools	Tweet It - Post It

Awards From Around the Web

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

Rank	Ranking Name	Source
#3	Best Health Information/Medical Records Technology/Technician Schools	College Factual
#5	Best Health & Medical Administrative Services Associate Degree Schools	College Factual
#20	Best Value Colleges for Parks, Recreation, Leisure, & Fitness Studies	College Factual
#101	Best Allied Health Professions Associate Degree Schools	College Factual
#140	Best Healthcare Schools	Healthcare Degree Search
#158	Best Health Professions Associate Degree Schools	College Factual

Where Is Dakota State University?

Contact details for Dakota State are given below.

	Contact Details
Address:	820 N Washington Ave, Madison, SD 57042-1799
Phone:	605-256-5111
Twitter:	http://twitter.com/DakotaState

How Do I Get Into Dakota State?

You can apply to Dakota State online at: https://dsu.edu/apply.html

Admission Requirements for Dakota State

Submission	Required?
High School GPA	required
High School Rank	required
High School Transcript	required
College Prep Program	neither required nor recommended
Recommendations	neither required nor recommended
SAT or ACT Scores	considered but not required
TOEFL	required

How Hard Is It To Get Into Dakota State?

The acceptance rate at Dakota State University is 84%. This means that is not quite as selective as some schools, but you'll still need to submit a good application if you want to be considered by the admissions department.

Approximately 66% of accepted students are men and 33% are women. The acceptance rate for men is 84%, and the acceptance rate for women is 83%.

Average Test Scores

About 11% of students accepted to Dakota State submitted their SAT scores. When looking at the 25th through the 75th percentile, SAT Evidence-Based Reading and Writing scores ranged between 500 and 610. Math scores were between 510 and 580.

Dakota State received ACT scores from 90% of accepted students. When looking at the 25th through the 75th percentile, ACT English scores ranged between 18 and 25. Math scores were between 19 and 26. Composite scores were between 19 and 26.

Can I Afford Dakota State University?

The overall average net price of Dakota State is $23,263. 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

Almost 66% of college students who graduated with the class of 2018 took out student loans, but that percentage varies from school to school. At Dakota State, approximately 67% of students took out student loans averaging $7,649 a year. That adds up to $30,596 over four years for those students.

The student loan default rate at Dakota State is 7.7%. 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.

Dakota State University Undergraduate Student Diversity

There are 2,740 undergraduate students at Dakota State, with 1,495 being full-time and 1,245 being part-time.

There are also 446 graduate students at the school.

Gender Diversity

Of the 1,495 full-time undergraduates at Dakota State, 71% are male and 29% are female.

Racial-Ethnic Diversity

The racial-ethnic breakdown of Dakota State University students is as follows.

Race/Ethnicity	Number of Grads
Asian	23
Black or African American	39
Hispanic or Latino	68
White	1,222
International Students	28
Other Races/Ethnicities	115

Geographic Diversity

South Dakota students aren't the only ones who study at Dakota State University. At this time, 22 states are represented by the student population at the school.

Over 25 countries are represented at Dakota State. The most popular countries sending students to the school are India, Nepal, and Nigeria.

Online Learning at Dakota State University

There are 13 bachelor’s degree and 6 master’s degree programs available online at Dakota State. In 2019-2020, 2,440 students took at least one online class at the school.

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

This school is the 3rd most popular in South Dakota for online learning according to the online graduations recorded by the Department of Education for the academic year 2019-2020.

Online Affordability Rankings of Dakota State

The following table shows how Dakota State 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
Military Technologies & Applied Sciences	#1	#1
Intelligence & Command Control Operations	#3	#1
Writing Studies	#10	#1
Medical Illustration & Informatics	#10	#1
Information Technology	#13	#1
Information Science	#19	#1
Computer Information Systems	#25	#1
Special Education	#31	#16
Finance & Financial Management	#31	#16
Health & Medical Administrative Services	#31	#15
Accounting	#31	#24
English Language & Literature	#51	#7
Marketing	#55	#33

Online Growth Rankings of Dakota State

The average growth rate over the last four years of online students at Dakota State University was 6.6%. This is the #786 largest growth rate of all schools that are mostly online. This refers to all students at Dakota State regardless of major.

The following table shows the 1-year growth rate of Dakota State majors that offer at least one online course. This table only includes majors with positive growth.

Major	1-Year Growth Rate
Accounting	18%
Computer & Information Sciences	28%
Computer Information Systems	26%
Computer Software & Applications	61%
Computer Systems Networking	50%
Education	17%
Finance & Financial Management	33%
Health Professions	5%
Information Technology	31%
Instructional Media Design	63%
Marketing	36%
Special Education	13%

The table below shows how the average growth rate over 4 years at Dakota State ranks compared to all other mostly online schools that offer a specific major. Note that the majors may or may not be offered online at Dakota State.

Major	Growth Rate Rank
Military Technologies & Applied Sciences	#11
Intelligence & Command Control Operations	#11
Medical Illustration & Informatics	#26
Mathematics	#52
Mathematics & Statistics	#71
Information Science	#103
Computer Software & Applications	#110
Instructional Media Design	#132
Finance & Financial Management	#132
Special Education	#176
Marketing	#207
Information Technology	#271
Computer Information Systems	#296
Teacher Education Grade Specific	#318
Health & Medical Administrative Services	#441
Accounting	#472
Liberal Arts General Studies	#490
Liberal Arts / Sciences & Humanities	#490

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%.

Dakota State University Undergraduate Concentrations

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

Major	Basic Certificate	Associate’s	Undergraduate Certificate	Bachelor’s	Graduate Certificate	Master’s	Doctor’s	TOTAL
Information Technology	7	10	0	102	0	28	9	156
Computer Information Systems	7	0	0	49	0	60	0	116
Information Science	0	6	0	18	21	13	7	65
Computer Software & Applications	1	0	0	45	0	0	0	46
Special Education	0	0	0	24	0	0	0	24
Liberal Arts General Studies	0	12	0	12	0	0	0	24
Business Administration & Management	0	4	0	16	0	3	0	23
Teacher Education Grade Specific	0	0	0	21	0	0	0	21
Health & Medical Administrative Services	0	8	3	9	0	0	0	20
Instructional Media Design	0	0	0	0	0	16	0	16
Allied Health Professions	0	12	0	3	0	0	0	15
Accounting	0	0	0	11	0	0	0	11
Marketing	0	0	0	11	0	0	0	11
Health & Physical Education	0	0	0	11	0	0	0	11
Teacher Education Subject Specific	0	0	0	9	0	0	0	9
Statistics	0	0	0	9	0	0	0	9
Biological & Biomedical Sciences (Other)	0	0	0	8	0	0	0	8
English Literature (Other)	0	0	0	6	0	0	0	6
Finance & Financial Management	0	0	0	3	0	0	0	3
Medical Illustration & Informatics	0	0	0	0	0	3	0	3
Computer Systems Networking	2	0	0	0	0	0	0	2
Writing Studies	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	1
Mathematics	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	1
Intelligence & Command Control Operations	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
General Physical Sciences	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
TOTAL	18	52	3	368	21	123	16	601

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 Jlgrabinger under License

More about our data sources and methodologies.