Student-to-faculty ratios and NAPLEX pass rates

Objective

ACPE newly approved standards for PharmD programs (Standards 2025) indicates that colleges should maintain a student-to-faculty ratio of no greater than 10:1. This may have significant implications for colleges that are currently above the 10:1 ratio; yet, little published evidence exists for using 10:1 as the threshold for determining whether a college has sufficient faculty. This study examines the relationship of student-to-faculty ratio with NAPLEX first-attempt pass rate.

Methods

Data were extracted from AACP institutional research reports for academic year 2022 to determine the number of enrolled students and faculty members for each college of pharmacy, and data were obtained from NABP public reports to determine NAPLEX pass rates for the colleges across 2021–2023. The 3-year average NAPLEX first-attempt pass rate for each college was calculated. The 3-year NAPLEX pass rate was compared between colleges with high (>10:1) and low (≤ 10:1) student-to-faculty ratios.

Results

Complete data were available for 138 colleges of pharmacy wherein 29 of those colleges had a student-to-faculty ratio of at least 10:1. Of the 29 colleges with a high ratio, 24 were private institutions. The mean 3-year first attempt pass rate for NAPLEX was not substantially different for colleges that had a student-to-faculty ratio > 10:1 when compared to colleges with a ratio ≤ 10:1 (mean difference = 3.67 percentage points).

Conclusion

The NAPLEX first-attempt pass rate does not differ substantially between colleges based solely on student-to-faculty ratio. Additional research is needed to identify other factors that may explain these differences in program outcomes.