Columbia Southern University Business Programs

Columbia Southern University is a private for-profit institution located in Orange Beach, Alabama. The surrounding location of Orange Beach is ideal for students who enjoy the charms of a college town.

Columbia Southern University Rankings

Columbia Southern University is ranked #5 out of 21 schools in Alabama.

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.

Columbia Southern University has been awarded the following overall awards by our latest rankings.

Rank	Ranking Name	Share
#14	Best Business Associate Degree Schools	Tweet It - Post It
#155	Best Business Bachelor’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 Columbia Southern University.

Rank	Ranking Name	Share
#1	Best Value Marketing Graduate Certificate Schools	Tweet It - Post It
#1	Best Value Finance & Financial Management Graduate Certificate Schools	Tweet It - Post It
#2	Best Value Human Resource Management Bachelor’s Degree Schools	Tweet It - Post It
#5	Best Value Business Administration & Management Bachelor’s Degree Schools	Tweet It - Post It
#5	Most Popular Online Human Resource Management Bachelor’s Degree Schools	Tweet It - Post It
#6	Best Business Administration & Management Associate Degree Schools	Tweet It - Post It
#9	Most Popular Business Administration & Management Master’s Degree Schools	Tweet It - Post It
#10	Most Popular Human Resource Management Bachelor’s Degree Schools	Tweet It - Post It
#11	Most Popular Online Business Administration & Management Bachelor’s Degree Schools	Tweet It - Post It

Awards From Around the Web

The following table lists some notable awards Columbia Southern University has earned from around the web.

Rank	Ranking Name	Source
#54	Best Business Administration & Management Associate Degree Colleges for Veterans	College Factual
#89	Best Business, Management & Marketing Associate Degree Colleges for Veterans	College Factual
#92	Best Value Bachelor’s Degree Colleges for General Business Administration and Management	College Factual
#97	Best Value Bachelor’s Degree Colleges for Business Administration & Management	College Factual
#115	Best Schools	Course Advisor
#117	Best Value Bachelor’s Degree Colleges for Business, Management & Marketing	College Factual

Where Is Columbia Southern University?

Contact details for Columbia Southern University are given below.

	Contact Details
Address:	21982 University Lane, Orange Beach, AL 36561-9000
Phone:	251-981-3771
Website:	www.columbiasouthern.edu
Facebook:	https://www.facebook.com/Columbia.Southern
Twitter:	https://twitter.com/CSUedu

How Do I Get Into Columbia Southern University?

You can apply to Columbia Southern University online at: www.columbiasouthern.edu/Apply-Now

Columbia Southern University has an open admissions policy. This means that the school accepts all applicants assuming that they meet very basic requirements, such as having a high school diploma or equivalent.

Can I Afford Columbia Southern University?

Student Loan Debt

While almost two-thirds of students nationwide take out loans to pay for college, the percentage may be quite different for the school you plan on attending. At Columbia Southern University, approximately 58% of students took out student loans averaging $6,412 a year. That adds up to $25,648 over four years for those students.

The student loan default rate at Columbia Southern University is 6.5%. 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.

Columbia Southern University Undergraduate Student Diversity

There are 13,254 undergraduate students at Columbia Southern University, with 6,866 being full-time and 6,388 being part-time.

There are also 5,279 graduate students at the school.

Gender Diversity

Of the 6,866 full-time undergraduates at Columbia Southern University, 59% are male and 41% are female.

Racial-Ethnic Diversity

The racial-ethnic breakdown of Columbia Southern University students is as follows.

Race/Ethnicity	Number of Grads
Asian	91
Black or African American	1,279
Hispanic or Latino	202
White	3,598
International Students	1
Other Races/Ethnicities	1,695

Geographic Diversity

Alabama students aren't the only ones who study at Columbia Southern University. At this time, 44 states are represented by the student population at the school.

Online Learning at Columbia Southern University

In 2019-2020, 18,533 students took at least one online class at the school.

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

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

Online Affordability Rankings of Columbia Southern University Rankings

During the most recent year for which we have data, the full-time undergraduate tuition at Columbia Southern University was $5,775 for both in-state and out-of-state students. The following table shows how Columbia Southern University is ranked for affordability for both in-state and out-of-state students among colleges and universities that are mostly online.

Major	Tuition for In-State Students	Tuition for Out-of-State Students
Organizational Leadership	#1	#1
Human Resource Management	#1	#1
General Human Resources Management/Personnel Administration	#1	#1
Marketing	#4	#1
Marketing/Marketing Management, General	#4	#1
General Business Administration and Management	#10	#7

Online Growth Rankings of Columbia Southern University

The average growth rate over the last four years of online students at Columbia Southern University was -3.5%. This is the #749 largest growth rate of all schools that are mostly online. This refers to all students at Columbia Southern University regardless of major.

The table below shows how the average growth rate over 4 years at Columbia Southern University ranks compared to all other mostly online schools that offer a specific major.

Major	Growth Rate Rank
Project Management	#94
Finance	#129
Finance & Financial Management	#180
Marketing/Marketing Management, General	#213
Organizational Leadership	#217
Marketing	#282
General Human Resources Management/Personnel Administration	#287
Human Resource Management	#330

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%.

Columbia Southern University Business Concentrations

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

Major	Basic Certificate	Associate’s	Bachelor’s	Graduate Certificate	Master’s	Doctor’s	TOTAL
General Business Administration and Management	2	327	723	0	1,030	42	2,124
Organizational Leadership	0	0	100	0	211	0	311
General Human Resources Management/Personnel Administration	20	0	165	15	0	0	200
Project Management	9	0	0	6	0	0	15
Finance	2	0	0	2	0	0	4
Marketing/Marketing Management, General	1	0	0	2	0	0	3
General Hospitality Administration/Management	1	0	0	0	0	0	1
International Business/Trade/Commerce	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
TOTAL	35	327	988	25	1,241	42	2,658

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

More about our data sources and methodologies.