Most Affordable Small Colleges
By Iris Stone
Picking which college you should attend can feel like a big decision – and in many cases, it is. As the pressure mounts for you to pick a single location at which to spend the next four years of your life, you'll have to consider much more than just academic quality and reputation. Weather, selection of majors, research opportunities, and campus size are all important factors that you shouldn't ignore. It can be easy to gravitate to the larger, more well-known schools, but small colleges offer some unique benefits. Classes tend to be much smaller, ensuring that you receive more individual attention from professors. You get to know more people by name, which can make it easier to participate in campus activities. Some people assume that small schools lack resources and academic variety, but think twice before you jump to conclusions! As we always remind our readers: do your research first.
Top 100 Ranking Affordable Small Schools
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Factors Considered When Ranking the Schools
Listed below are the 100 most affordable small colleges in the United States. How did we come up with such a list? First, we took on the gargantuan task of identifying every single institution of higher education in the nation – a list that originally topped 2,700 schools. The next step was to eliminate community colleges, graduate schools, and specialty schools (for example, seminaries or pre-professional schools that would appeal only to a small subset of applicants). As our focus was on traditional four-year colleges, we also eliminated schools that don't admit first-time undergraduates. This dropped our list of candidates to about 1,900, at which point we collected data on student enrollment. We consulted several reputable sources (listed at the end of the article) and determined that for this ranking, we would define "small college" as a school with 4,000 students or fewer. This narrowed list (comprised of about 700 schools) became the foundation for this ranking.
We then took the final step of determining affordability. We chose to rank colleges based on their "net price," a figure that we interpret as more accurate than reporting tuition rates alone. These net prices, which come from College Navigator (a component of the National Center for Education Statistics), are generated:
"By subtracting the average amount of federal, state/local government, or institutional grant or scholarship aid from the total cost of attendance. Total cost of attendance is the sum of published tuition and required fees (lower of in-district or in-state), books and supplies, and the weighted average for room and board and other expenses." – College Navigator
This net price then gives students a more accurate assessment (although not necessarily precise for everyone) of what you can expect to pay in total costs per year at any given school. We sorted the schools by their net price and listed the 100 most affordable below. Remarkably, even the 100th most expensive small college still has an annual price tag less than $16,000. Furthermore, these 100 colleges cover an attractive range of academic majors, religious affiliations, locations, and extracurricular opportunities, practically guaranteeing that you can find a school that fits your interests, budget, and desire for a close-knit community.
Quick LinksSources:
College Navigator
College Board
College Data
U.S. News and World Report
The College Solution
About the Author:
Iris Stone began her writing career when she started working as a freelance writer and researcher in 2011. Her freelance business soon took off and she now owns and operates a writing and editing firm that works with clients all across the country. Despite the time it takes to run a business she still does much of the writing herself, and her work has included a variety of content related to education policy, colleges and universities, academic programs, and graduates' careers. Her interests actually span far beyond writing, and she is currently studying to be a physicist! Check out her Google+ Profile.
