Small colleges in Florida 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.
Coming in under the national tuition average at $6,360, Florida’s colleges and universities make earning your degree affordable. Prospective students can choose from 40 public and 50 private institutions that award associate, bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees in fields like anthropology, nursing, law, religious studies, and earth sciences. With over 165,000 students across eight campuses and 21 outreach centers, Miami Dade College is the largest public college in the state with a tuition of $3,000.
Find college admissions consultants in your state.
Students seeking a religious school can choose from 21 colleges and universities that are grounded in Judeo-Christian, Catholic, Seventh-day Adventist, and Christian principals. Ranked as the top two schools, the University of Florida (UF) and Florida State University (FSU) both have large student populations, with just over 45,000 at UF and just under 39,000 as FSU. Both are also affordable, with tuition at $6,000 and $7,000, respectively.
At $50,000, the University of Miami is the most expensive private college in the state and has graduated influential people, such as Gene Roddenberry, Sylvester Stallone, and Dwayne The Rock
Johnson. Florida also offers its nursing students up to $4,000 in loan forgiveness through their Nursing Student Loan Forgiveness Program.
Coastal cities, sandy beaches, orange groves, and vibrant flowers — it’s no wonder Florida is called The Sunshine State. Home to the famous Everglades National Park and Disney World, Florida also boasts 90 higher education institutes.
With so many options and in such a beautiful setting, Florida has a lot to offer higher education students. Check out Florida’s best degree programs and top career paths.
The following list of the best small colleges and universities in Florida is composed mainly of four-year undergraduate schools (though a handful also offer graduate programs). We’ve identified a total of 34 small colleges in Florida. The list below of the 20 best small colleges in the state satisfies 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.
Tuition + fees
$7K
Acceptance
70%
Graduation
64%
Student body
<1K
Median SAT/ACT
1270/28
New College of Florida’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$23K
Acceptance
92%
Graduation
53%
Student body
1K
Median SAT/ACT
1135/24
Ave Maria University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$48K
Acceptance
69%
Graduation
65%
Student body
2K
Median SAT/ACT
1185/26
Eckerd College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$54K
Acceptance
61%
Graduation
81%
Student body
3K
Rollins College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$33K
Acceptance
60%
Graduation
35%
Student body
3K
Median SAT/ACT
990/19
St. Thomas University ’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$50K
Acceptance
81%
Graduation
64%
Student body
4K
Stetson University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$20K
Acceptance
56%
Graduation
58%
Student body
3K
Flagler College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$39K
Acceptance
50%
Graduation
68%
Student body
3K
Median SAT/ACT
1192/26
Florida Southern College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$40K
Acceptance
78%
Graduation
51%
Student body
4K
Median SAT/ACT
1035/21
Jacksonville University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$33K
Acceptance
92%
Graduation
57%
Student body
3K
Median SAT/ACT
1090/23
Palm Beach Atlantic University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$40K
Acceptance
79%
Graduation
59%
Student body
3K
Median SAT/ACT
1075/23
Lynn University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$18K
Acceptance
75%
Graduation
58%
Student body
2K
Everglades University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$3K
Graduation
42%
Student body
5K
St. Johns River State College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Acceptance
24%
Median SAT/ACT
1225/27
Tuition + fees
$3K
Graduation
56%
Student body
2K
Florida Gateway College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$3K
Graduation
33%
Student body
4K
Northwest Florida State College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$3K
Graduation
59%
Student body
2K
South Florida State College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$43K
Acceptance
45%
Graduation
62%
Student body
<1K
Beacon College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$3K
Graduation
47%
Student body
3K
Lake–Sumter State College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$3K
Graduation
49%
Student body
1K
Chipola College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Stay informed! Get the latest Academic Influence news, information, and rankings with our upcoming newsletter.