Here are the best colleges and universities in Illinois. Our list will help you find the right kind of school for you.
Illinois offers over 130 higher education institutes throughout the state. More than half of those schools are private, including the well-known DePaul University, Northwestern University, and Loyola University Chicago. While tuition at these three private schools can be costly, ranging from $44,000 to $55,000, graduation rates are high. Tuition at the University of Illinois at Chicago and Illinois State University, the state’s two largest public universities, however, is lower, falling in the range of $13,000 to $15,000.
Find college admissions consultants in your state.
While some of these universities have large student populations, Illinois is also home to many small schools, including Benedictine University and National Louis University. Students choosing to study at one at an Illinois college can pursue degrees in areas like criminal justice, social work, nursing, education, religious studies, communications, and medicine. Additionally, Illinois offers several loan forgiveness program for qualifying students pursuing careers as teachers, public defenders or prosecutors, or nurses.
From the skyscrapers in Chicago to the vast prairie lands in the north, Illinois is a place where city meets country. Students can grab a Chicago-style hotdog on the way to a Cubs game, explore the ancient sandstone cliffs in the Shawnee National Forest, or admire an exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago, all while attending one of The Prairie State’s universities or colleges.
The higher education institutes in Illinois have also produced many prominent alumni, including Stephen Colbert, Hugh Hefner, and Kurt Vonnegut. Students hoping to walk the same streets as these well-known individuals can check out some of the state’s top programs and universities.
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Related: Differences between research universities and teaching colleges
The best colleges pound for pound!
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.
Less Every fall, more than 2 million high-school graduates will enroll in colleges and universities across the United States. Finding the best college for your educational, personal, and professional goals may be challenging. The purpose of this ranking is to help you manage this challenge with an accurate, objective, and up-to-date ranking of the best colleges and universities in Illinois for earning a bachelor’s degree.
We’ve identified a total of 56 colleges and universities in Illinois, 41 of which meet our criteria. The list below of the top 25 schools focuses on those that offer four-year undergraduate degrees, includes both public and private colleges and universities, and also meet the following two conditions:
Tuition + fees
$59K
Acceptance
7%
Graduation
96%
Student body
13K
Median SAT/ACT
1535/34
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University of Chicago’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$57K
Acceptance
9%
Graduation
95%
Student body
19K
Median SAT/ACT
1495/34
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Northwestern University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$49K
Acceptance
61%
Graduation
72%
Student body
5K
Median SAT/ACT
1295/29
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Illinois Institute of Technology’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$38K
Acceptance
87%
Graduation
88%
Student body
3K
Median SAT/ACT
1330/29
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Wheaton College ’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$17K
Acceptance
63%
Graduation
86%
Student body
52K
Median SAT/ACT
1340/29
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University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$15K
Acceptance
73%
Graduation
63%
Student body
27K
Median SAT/ACT
1145/24
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University of Illinois at Chicago’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$48K
Acceptance
71%
Graduation
71%
Student body
1K
Median SAT/ACT
1220/27
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Knox College ’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$12K
Acceptance
77%
Graduation
55%
Student body
4K
Median SAT/ACT
1107/22
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University of Illinois at Springfield’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$33K
Acceptance
86%
Graduation
53%
Student body
1K
Median SAT/ACT
1045/22
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Trinity International University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$41K
Acceptance
70%
Graduation
71%
Student body
19K
View profile
DePaul University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$30K
Acceptance
92%
Graduation
75%
Student body
<1K
Median SAT/ACT
1114/24
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Principia College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$46K
Acceptance
71%
Graduation
76%
Student body
15K
Median SAT/ACT
1225/27
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Loyola University Chicago’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$39K
Acceptance
69%
Graduation
58%
Student body
<1K
Median SAT/ACT
1080/22
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Monmouth College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$49K
Acceptance
57%
Graduation
82%
Student body
2K
Median SAT/ACT
1220/26
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Illinois Wesleyan University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$48K
Acceptance
58%
Graduation
75%
Student body
2K
View profile
Lake Forest College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$13K
Acceptance
81%
Graduation
68%
Student body
19K
Median SAT/ACT
1120/23
View profile
Illinois State University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$34K
Acceptance
75%
Graduation
68%
Student body
1K
View profile
Illinois College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$35K
Acceptance
73%
Graduation
76%
Student body
5K
Median SAT/ACT
1170/25
View profile
Bradley University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$34K
Acceptance
76%
Graduation
63%
Student body
3K
Median SAT/ACT
1100/22
View profile
Dominican University ’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$12K
Acceptance
56%
Graduation
51%
Student body
6K
Median SAT/ACT
1035/20
View profile
Eastern Illinois University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$40K
Acceptance
53%
Graduation
66%
Student body
3K
Median SAT/ACT
1145/24
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North Central College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$44K
Acceptance
57%
Graduation
77%
Student body
3K
View profile
Augustana College ’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$38K
Acceptance
66%
Graduation
68%
Student body
3K
Median SAT/ACT
1100/23
View profile
Elmhurst University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$37K
Acceptance
67%
Graduation
65%
Student body
4K
Median SAT/ACT
1070/22
View profile
Olivet Nazarene University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$37K
Acceptance
71%
Graduation
53%
Student body
2K
Median SAT/ACT
1075/23
View profile
Millikin University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
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