Small colleges in Alabama are a great option for students interested in a more intimate campus experience, more personal attention from excellent professors, and more immediate access to support services. Whether the focus is on the technical or on the liberal arts, small colleges give you the chance to pursue a well-rounded education while working closely with classmates and professors in a dynamic community atmosphere.
The 54 colleges and universities in Alabama allow students to pursue associate, bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees in many fields all over the state. Some of the most notable degree areas include law, nursing, biology, history, engineering, and religious studies. If flexibility is what you need, Alabama has over 20 colleges and universities offering online degree programs.
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Students hoping to obtain a four-year degree at a larger university can attend one of the two largest — as well as rivalry — schools, the University of Alabama and Auburn University. Both schools’ tuition is about $11,000, though the University of Alabama’s student population, at nearly 36,000 students, is larger than Auburn’s. Students also have the option of attending one of Alabama’s 18 private higher education institutes, many of which have religious affiliations. Tuition costs and student populations range greatly among these schools, from $36,000 to $4,000 and nearly 15,000 students to less than 100, letting students factor in their budget with their class size demands.
Additionally, students who need more flexibility can take advantage of the satellite campuses, like at the University of North Alabama, or the 70 online degree programs offered at the University of Alabama, to easily obtain their degrees. For more information on higher education in Alabama, check out some of the state’s top programs and their corresponding career paths.
For die-hard football fans and lovers of sweet tea, obtaining a higher education degree in Alabama can seem like an obvious choice. The Yellowhammer State, however, is also home to a unique mixture of coastal, mountainous, and swamp environments, making it a great choice for students who love soaking up the outdoors.
The following list of the best small colleges and universities in Alabama is composed mainly of four-year undergraduate schools (though a handful also offer graduate programs). We’ve identified 18 small colleges in Alabama. The list below of the 30 best small colleges in Alabama. To be included schools must fully accredited, and must have student body populations below 5,000 students.
The people affiliated with a school are ultimately what make it great! If you are serious about finding the best colleges and universities for a bachelor’s degree, you should be asking where the most influential professors are teaching and whether their graduates are themselves advancing the school’s reputation for academic excellence in their fields of study.
Most ranking sites rely on an opaque combination of reputation surveys and arbitrary performance metrics. Concentrated Influence provides a ranking that is freer from bias, insulated from manipulation, and reflective of real-world educational outcomes.
To rank the influence of schools, we first determine the influence of scholars and professionals based on the number of citations and publications they have had over the past 10 years. In addition to publications and citations, we consider the web links to and from these sources, and the page views of those sources. We then match the influential people to their alma maters and institutions of employment, so that their influence is attributed to those schools. Our machine-learning Influence Ranking algorithm produces a numerical score of academic achievements, merits, and citations across Wikipedia, wikidata, Crossref, Semantic Scholar and an ever-growing body of data. If you are interested in exploring how and why we rank by influence, explore our methodology in more depth.
Tuition + fees
$35K
Acceptance
84%
Graduation
77%
Student body
5K
Median SAT/ACT
1160/26
Samford University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$23K
Acceptance
61%
Graduation
52%
Student body
3K
Median SAT/ACT
989/20
Tuskegee University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$11K
Acceptance
99%
Graduation
32%
Student body
4K
Median SAT/ACT
950/17
Alabama State University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$23K
Acceptance
76%
Graduation
27%
Student body
3K
Median SAT/ACT
1080/20
Faulkner University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$9K
Acceptance
96%
Graduation
30%
Student body
4K
Median SAT/ACT
1035/21
Auburn University at Montgomery’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$20K
Acceptance
60%
Graduation
71%
Student body
1K
Median SAT/ACT
1210/25
Birmingham–Southern College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$21K
Acceptance
54%
Graduation
57%
Student body
1K
Median SAT/ACT
1112/22
Spring Hill College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$13K
Graduation
24%
Student body
1K
Miles College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$20K
Acceptance
89%
Graduation
50%
Student body
1K
Median SAT/ACT
980/19
Oakwood University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$28K
Acceptance
54%
Graduation
42%
Student body
<1K
Median SAT/ACT
1107/20
Huntingdon College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$14K
Acceptance
61%
Graduation
54%
Student body
2K
Median SAT/ACT
1135/22
University of Montevallo’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$11K
Acceptance
56%
Graduation
22%
Student body
<1K
Stillman College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$14K
Graduation
30%
Student body
1K
Talladega College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$11K
Acceptance
93%
Graduation
40%
Student body
5K
Median SAT/ACT
940/20
University of West Alabama’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$25K
Acceptance
67%
Graduation
49%
Student body
1K
Median SAT/ACT
1085/23
University of Mobile’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$8K
Student body
2K
Athens State University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$10K
Graduation
25%
Student body
<1K
Amridge University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Many of our 2022 undergraduate focused rankings look considerably different than 2021. That’s because we took a fundamentally different apporach. For 2021 we utiulized our Concentrated Influence algorithm, designed to take away the size advantage larger schools have when we rank their faculty and alumni’s academic influence. Concentrated influence highlights smaller schools that are proportionally as successful as larger universities at cultivating influential alumni and faculty.
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