Best Christian Colleges in Illinois 2025

Badge for BEST IN ILLINOIS CHRISTIAN COLLEGES

By Dr. James Barham
Reviewed By Jenn Finley

Published: Mar 23, 2021
Updated: Oct 24, 2024

Key Takeaways

Christian colleges are bound by the Council of Christian Colleges and Universities, the association that spearheads and oversees these institutions’ accreditation status and curriculum design.
Illinois has a diverse population base, which explains why they also have high-powered colleges and universities, including Bible and Christian colleges.
Almost all states have Christian Colleges, and some of the most exceptional ones are found in Illinois.

Table of Contents

10 Best Christian Colleges in Illinois in 2025

Loyola University Chicago
DePaul University
Wheaton College
Augustana College
+4
Eureka College
+5
Trinity International University
+3
Illinois College
+4
Benedictine University
–4
Elmhurst University
+10
Monmouth College
+4

2025 Ranking Update

Our Influence Ranking Engine™ leverages machine learning to track the real-world influence of colleges and universities over time. Below you’ll see which schools gained or lost ground for the 2025 school year.

The top 3 positions in our 2025 ranking of the best Christian colleges in Illinois remain unchanged from last year. The big movers in our ranking were Augustana College, Eureka College, and Trinity International University.

For 2025, Augustana College has expanded their “Augustana Possible” financial aid program, which now meets 100% of demonstrated financial need for qualifying students, making the college more accessible to high-achieving students from families with financial constraints.

Eureka College has implemented the Eureka Promise, which gives a tuition-free education for all eligible students who meet academic criteria. This program enhances access to education for students from lower-income backgrounds, aligning with the college’s mission of service and leadership. Additionally, the college has welcomed its largest-ever first-year class, reflecting its growing appeal.

The following list of the best Christian schools consists entirely of colleges and universities that offer four-year undergraduate degrees. We’ve identified 24 Christian colleges in Illinois. In order to be included in this ranking list of best Christian colleges and universities, a school must self-identify as Christian, be fully accredited, and offer a broad range of bachelor degree programs.

How do we determine Illinois's best Christian colleges and universities?

Methodology

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.