* Major: Students in fields requiring a lot of writing (e.g., journalism, English) will likely have higher average WPM than those in less writing-intensive fields (e.g., some sciences).
* Typing experience prior to college: Students who learned touch typing in high school or earlier will generally type faster.
* How much they type in college: Frequent typing for coursework and assignments will improve speed.
* Definition of "average": Are we talking mean, median, or mode? The distribution likely isn't perfectly symmetrical.
While there's no readily available research specifically on college student typing speeds, general typing speed averages for adults range from 40-70 WPM, with some reaching much higher. A college student's typing speed would likely fall within this range, but it's impossible to give a more precise average without specific data on a particular college's student population.