Small colleges in Arizona 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.
Students hoping to attend college in Arizona can choose from associate to doctoral degree programs spanning across the state. The state’s largest university, the University of Arizona located in Tucson, offers a competitive tuition rate, at $12,000, for its 39,000 students. However, Arizona’s most affordable schools, such as the tribally-owned Diné College, offer tuition as low as $1,000. Private schools make up about one third of the higher education institutes in Arizona; and offer a comprehensive range of degrees from fine arts to naturopathic medicine. Arizona’s public universities and colleges, such as Northern Arizona University located in Flagstaff, offer students a variety of study concentrations, including mathematics, education, political science, and psychology.
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Additionally, Arizona is home to three religiously affiliated schools: Arizona Christian University, Phoenix Seminary, and International Baptist College. While tuition varies greatly among these three schools, each school provides unique degree programs, such as music ministry at International Baptist College, for students interested in combining their faith and education.
Year-round sunshine, the Grand Canyon, award-winning restaurants, and several professional sports teams — what more could a student ask for? With more than 30 colleges and universities to choose from, Arizona allows students to get their degrees while cashing in on some of life’s greatest pleasures.
Whether students are interested in obtaining an associate, bachelor’s, master’s, or doctoral degree, Arizona offers plenty of colleges and universities for students to choose from.
The following list of the best small colleges and universities in Arizona is composed mainly of four-year undergraduate schools (though a handful also offer graduate programs). We’ve identified a total of 10 small colleges in Arizona that satisfy the following three conditions:
The people affiliated with a school are ultimately what make it great. This is why, at the undergraduate level, we rank the best colleges and universities based on what we call “Concentrated Influence”. Concentrated Influence takes the combined influence score of a college or university’s top academic influencers (including faculty and alums) and divides it by the school’s total number of undergraduates.
Using concentrated influence gives small and mid-sized schools an opportunity to shine by taking away the size advantage of larger universities. A small school with proportionately more influential faculty than a large school, whose influence in absolute terms may be bigger, will nonetheless score higher in a concentrated influence ranking. Our approach highlights undergraduate schools that truly rank for excellence, regardless of size.
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.
Most ranking sites rely on an opaque combination of reputation surveys and arbitrary performance metrics. Concentrated Influence provides a ranking that is free from bias, insulated from manipulation, and reflective of real-world educational outcomes.
Find out more about our ranking methodology here.
Tuition + fees
$34K
Acceptance
98%
Graduation
49%
Student body
<1K
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Prescott College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$29K
Acceptance
71%
Graduation
44%
Student body
<1K
Median SAT/ACT
985/18
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Arizona Christian University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$1K
Graduation
20%
Student body
<1K
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Diné College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$38K
Acceptance
67%
Graduation
59%
Student body
3K
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Embry–Riddle Aeronautical University, Prescott’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$17K
Acceptance
81%
Graduation
40%
Student body
<1K
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University of Advancing Technology’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$8K
Graduation
36%
Student body
<1K
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National Paralegal College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
The Art Institute of Phoenix’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$23K
Graduation
58%
Student body
<1K
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Graduation
50%
Student body
1K
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Brookline College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$13K
Graduation
64%
Student body
<1K
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