Liberal arts colleges are a great option for students seeking a well-rounded education in an intimate campus setting. The best liberal arts colleges in Indiana offer a diverse selection of degree programs with opportunities for a highly individualized educational experience.
Among Indiana’s schools are some well-known colleges and universities, including the University of Notre Dame, Purdue University, and Butler University. While tuition and student population vary greatly among these schools, each boasts a high graduation rate. The state’s largest public university, Indiana University Bloomington, also notes a high graduation rate for its roughly 40,000 students and offers tuition just above the national average at $11,000.
Find college admissions consultants in your state.
Additionally, students hoping to attend a school with a religious affiliation have nearly 30 options to choose from. Students at these schools can study areas like engineering, business, philosophy, religious studies, and law. Indiana offers loan forgiveness programs for health care workers who work in areas with labor shortages as well as for lawyers providing public legal aid. Additionally, graduates of Indiana University’s Maurer School of Law pursuing public interest law can apply for a special grant program that will help cover the cost of preparing and sitting for the bar exam.
With town names like Popcorn and Santa Claus, it is clear Indiana is no stranger to a good time. Along with these unique towns, Indiana also hosts the Indianapolis 500, a long-distance auto race; boasts a thriving art scene; and has been home to iconic celebrities, including Larry Bird, James Dean, and David Letterman. Students wanting to experience all Indiana has to offer while studying have the option of attending one of Indiana’s more than 50 higher education institutes.
Explore Indiana’s more than 50 colleges and universities to find a program and future career path that’s right for you.
Related: Differences between research universities and teaching colleges
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.
A liberal arts college is a school that puts a premium on undergraduate studies and offers a broad range of subjects for students to study. A college of liberal arts typically provides smaller class sizes, more direct engagement with professors, and, most importantly, the opportunity to sample a wide range of subject areas on the way to a bachelor’s degree. We’ve identified 34 liberal arts colleges in Indiana. To be ranked among the 30 best liberal arts colleges in Indiana, schools must fully accredited institutions.
Tuition + fees
$54K
Acceptance
68%
Graduation
87%
Student body
2K
Median SAT/ACT
1245/26
DePauw University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$49K
Acceptance
59%
Graduation
67%
Student body
<1K
Median SAT/ACT
1235/26
Earlham College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$43K
Acceptance
76%
Graduation
82%
Student body
6K
Median SAT/ACT
1240/27
Butler University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$40K
Acceptance
64%
Graduation
67%
Student body
2K
Median SAT/ACT
1189/26
University of Evansville’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$46K
Acceptance
63%
Graduation
75%
Student body
<1K
Median SAT/ACT
1220/26
Wabash College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$34K
Acceptance
70%
Graduation
56%
Student body
1K
Manchester University ’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$29K
Acceptance
91%
Graduation
72%
Student body
3K
Median SAT/ACT
1125/23
Indiana Wesleyan University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$10K
Graduation
22%
Student body
46K
Purdue University Global’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$36K
Acceptance
92%
Graduation
63%
Student body
<1K
Median SAT/ACT
1108/25
Goshen College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$48K
Acceptance
82%
Graduation
81%
Student body
2K
Median SAT/ACT
1155/25
Saint Mary's College ’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$37K
Acceptance
70%
Graduation
78%
Student body
2K
Median SAT/ACT
1195/25
Taylor University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$8K
Acceptance
87%
Graduation
38%
Student body
4K
Median SAT/ACT
1040/20
Indiana University South Bend’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$40K
Acceptance
69%
Graduation
72%
Student body
1K
Median SAT/ACT
1135/23
Hanover College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$6K
Graduation
28%
Student body
8K
Vincennes University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$8K
Acceptance
67%
Graduation
45%
Student body
3K
Median SAT/ACT
1035/20
Indiana University East’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$33K
Acceptance
67%
Graduation
64%
Student body
1K
Median SAT/ACT
1080/22
Anderson University ’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$37K
Acceptance
64%
Graduation
60%
Student body
3K
Median SAT/ACT
1075/21
Marian University ’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$34K
Acceptance
79%
Graduation
61%
Student body
3K
Median SAT/ACT
1150/24
Trine University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$9K
Acceptance
94%
Graduation
53%
Student body
8K
Median SAT/ACT
1075/22
University of Southern Indiana’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$29K
Acceptance
63%
Graduation
38%
Student body
2K
Median SAT/ACT
1040/21
Indiana Institute of Technology’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$31K
Acceptance
71%
Graduation
53%
Student body
<1K
Median SAT/ACT
1025/20
Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$35K
Acceptance
76%
Graduation
63%
Student body
1K
Median SAT/ACT
1075/21
Franklin College ’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$28K
Acceptance
78%
Graduation
65%
Student body
1K
Median SAT/ACT
1057/21
Huntington University ’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$8K
Acceptance
30%
Graduation
42%
Student body
7K
Median SAT/ACT
1070/21
Purdue University Northwest’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$8K
Acceptance
85%
Graduation
36%
Student body
4K
Median SAT/ACT
1035/20
Indiana University Southeast’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$13K
Graduation
10%
Student body
<1K
Martin University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$8K
Acceptance
82%
Graduation
32%
Student body
3K
Median SAT/ACT
1005/19
Indiana University Northwest’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$8K
Acceptance
83%
Graduation
43%
Student body
3K
Median SAT/ACT
1050/20
Indiana University Kokomo’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$34K
Acceptance
77%
Graduation
55%
Student body
<1K
Median SAT/ACT
1220/29
Holy Cross College ’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$28K
Acceptance
75%
Graduation
68%
Student body
2K
Grace College & Seminary’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$26K
Acceptance
63%
Graduation
57%
Student body
<1K
Median SAT/ACT
1025/18
Oakland City University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$33K
Acceptance
99%
Graduation
51%
Student body
2K
Median SAT/ACT
1059/21
University of Saint Francis ’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$20K
Graduation
28%
Student body
<1K
Calumet College of St. Joseph’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$9K
Acceptance
83%
Graduation
40%
Student body
7K
Median SAT/ACT
1080/21
Indiana University–Purdue University Fort Wayne’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
In pursuing a bachelor’s degree, you will need to choose between three kinds of schools: research universities, liberal arts colleges, and online colleges.
Research universities are colleges and universities whose faculty are active in research and publishing. These schools offer a wide array of doctoral programs, especially in the sciences. They tend to be big, with tens of thousands of students.
Do you prefer a larger university setting, such as largest public university in your state? Research universities are typically big, offering degrees in many different disciplines. Is a big high-powered research environment the thing for you. If not, you should think about a liberal arts college. In deciding on an undergraduate institution, ask yourself what sort of environment will best help you to be happy and excel.
Often referred to as “teaching colleges” liberal arts colleges put a premium on undergraduate studies and offers a broad range of subjects for students to study. A college of liberal arts typically provides smaller class sizes, more direct engagement with professors, and, most importantly, the opportunity to sample a wide range of subject areas on the way to a bachelor’s degree.
Online colleges are typically the same colleges and universities you could attend in-person, but for certain degree programs the college or unviersity has made the degree programs available to be completed online. For over 5 million students, online degree programs allow students to earn their degrees in the most flexible format available. Online degrees are as respected as the on-campus degress you could earn from the same schools. There’s usually no disctinction between the two degrees, and your degree and transcript will not say that the degree was earned online. Online degree programs are offered by a vast majority of colleges and universities, and the number of offering continues to grow. Whehter you are searching for an associate, bachelor’s, master’s, or doctorate, there’s a good chance you can earn your degree online from a respectable online college.
If you interested in an online bachelor’s degree, check out what the best online colleges offer, or search our online degrees for the exact program that interests you. In either case, you will find well respected colleges and universities that offer online degrees.
Back to TopMany 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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