Here are the best colleges and universities in Iowa. Our list will help you find the right kind of school for you.
Iowa’s largest public university, Iowa State University, serves over 30,000 students and offers extra flexibility for those pursuing a graduate-level degree or certificate through online and distance learning opportunities in more than 50 academic fields. Additionally, the home of the Hawkeyes, the University of Iowa, is also home to some of the nation’s top programs in literature, philosophy, and law. This school has also been at the forefront of higher education, starting the nation’s first co-educational medical school, as well as being the first public school to grant a law degree to a woman, Mary B. Hickey Wilkinson, in 1873.
Find college admissions consultants in your state.
For students hoping to obtain their degrees at a smaller school, Iowa offers over 40 options to choose from, with tuition ranging from $4,000 at Indian Hills Community College up to $52,000 for an academic year at Grinnell College. Furthermore, nearly half of the schools in Iowa are religiously affiliated.
Iowa is often recognized for its agriculture as it produces the most pork and corn in the nation. Equally noteworthy is Iowa’s wealth of one-of-a-kind roadside attractions. From the largest wooden nickel, to the crookedest street, to the Grotto of Redemption, The Hawkeye State is full of wonders. Students in search of curiosities and oddities while earning a degree can attend one of Iowa’s public or private colleges.
Whether you’re looking to earn your associate, bachelor’s, master’s, or doctoral degree, Iowa offers many higher education institutes to choose from. Discover more about Iowa’s top programs and career paths.
Related: Differences between research universities and teaching colleges
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.
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 Iowa for earning a bachelor’s degree.
We’ve identified a total of 28 colleges and universities in Iowa, 24 of which satisfy our criteria. The list below of the best schools in the state 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
$57K
Acceptance
19%
Graduation
87%
Student body
2K
Median SAT/ACT
1450/32
Grinnell College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$36K
Acceptance
89%
Graduation
66%
Student body
<1K
Median SAT/ACT
1030/20
Clarke University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$10K
Acceptance
84%
Graduation
72%
Student body
26K
Median SAT/ACT
1235/25
University of Iowa’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$44K
Acceptance
68%
Graduation
78%
Student body
3K
Median SAT/ACT
1235/27
Drake University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$9K
Acceptance
88%
Graduation
75%
Student body
30K
Median SAT/ACT
1220/25
Iowa State University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$46K
Acceptance
82%
Graduation
67%
Student body
1K
Median SAT/ACT
1222/26
Cornell College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$31K
Acceptance
68%
Graduation
41%
Student body
1K
Median SAT/ACT
1020/21
Graceland University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$46K
Acceptance
72%
Graduation
68%
Student body
2K
Median SAT/ACT
1130/23
Wartburg College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$47K
Acceptance
80%
Graduation
62%
Student body
1K
Coe College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$17K
Acceptance
100%
Graduation
43%
Student body
2K
Maharishi International University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$35K
Acceptance
58%
Graduation
70%
Student body
1K
Median SAT/ACT
1055/22
Loras College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$34K
Acceptance
69%
Graduation
60%
Student body
2K
Morningside University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$46K
Acceptance
64%
Graduation
77%
Student body
2K
Median SAT/ACT
1147/25
Luther College ’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$9K
Acceptance
79%
Graduation
64%
Student body
9K
Median SAT/ACT
1110/23
University of Northern Iowa’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$33K
Acceptance
72%
Graduation
66%
Student body
2K
Median SAT/ACT
1185/24
Dordt University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$33K
Acceptance
74%
Graduation
69%
Student body
1K
Median SAT/ACT
1140/24
Northwestern College ’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$36K
Acceptance
76%
Graduation
57%
Student body
2K
Mount Mercy University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$36K
Acceptance
79%
Graduation
46%
Student body
2K
Median SAT/ACT
960/19
University of Dubuque’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$42K
Acceptance
87%
Graduation
71%
Student body
1K
Median SAT/ACT
1140/22
Simpson College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$36K
Acceptance
56%
Graduation
62%
Student body
2K
Median SAT/ACT
1020/22
Buena Vista University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$30K
Acceptance
97%
Graduation
56%
Student body
2K
Median SAT/ACT
1020/19
Grand View University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$33K
Acceptance
74%
Graduation
64%
Student body
2K
Median SAT/ACT
1170/22
St. Ambrose University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$33K
Acceptance
65%
Graduation
27%
Student body
4K
Median SAT/ACT
1070/21
Upper Iowa University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$33K
Graduation
50%
Student body
<1K
Briar Cliff University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
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