Here are the best colleges and universities in Maryland. Our list will help you find the right kind of school for you.
The Old Line State has 46 colleges and universities, 30 of which are public and 16 of which are private. The United States Naval Academy offers programs in physical sciences, aeronautical engineering, and naval architecture. The largest private institution, Johns Hopkins University, has just over 24,000 students and a tuition rate of $54,000. Located in Baltimore, this research university is known for its science and medical discoveries.
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The University of Maryland in College Park boasts over 35,000 students with a price tag of $11,000. The school has 15 campuses, and students can choose from areas of study like criminal justice, communications, physics, and sociology. The most affordable school in the state, Baltimore City Community College comes in at $3,000 and has 37 associate degree programs to choose from. Maryland also provides loan forgiveness programs for its residents, including those for dentists and public servants. Students can also check out the Maryland SmartBuy Home Buyer Assistance and Forgiveness Program, where eligible applicants can receive up to 15% of the home purchase price toward outstanding student loan, to be paid off as part of closing.
Maryland is a state bursting with history, from its numerous museums to its historic battlegrounds. Students who attend school in Maryland can explore the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Park and walk the same streets as many influential Marylanders, including Francis Scott Key, Babe Ruth, Billie Holiday, and Thurgood Marshall.
Whether you’re looking to earn an associate, bachelor’s, master’s, or doctoral degree, Maryland offers its students history, legacy, and numerous degree paths.
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.
We’ve identified 24 colleges and universities in Maryland that meet our criteria. This list of the top colleges in Maryland below focuses on schools that offer bachelor’s degrees. The ranking features fully accredited public and private colleges and universities in Maryland.
Tuition + fees
$59K
Acceptance
11%
Graduation
94%
Student body
26K
Median SAT/ACT
1510/34
Johns Hopkins University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$11K
Acceptance
51%
Graduation
87%
Student body
37K
Median SAT/ACT
1375/31
University of Maryland, College Park’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$54K
Acceptance
80%
Graduation
81%
Student body
5K
Loyola University Maryland’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$9K
Acceptance
80%
Graduation
34%
Student body
2K
Median SAT/ACT
1052/20
University of Baltimore’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$10K
Acceptance
79%
Graduation
73%
Student body
20K
Median SAT/ACT
1140/22
Towson University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$8K
Acceptance
74%
Graduation
46%
Student body
7K
Median SAT/ACT
705/18
Morgan State University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$9K
Acceptance
69%
Graduation
70%
Student body
11K
Median SAT/ACT
1270/26
University of Maryland, Baltimore County’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$48K
Acceptance
79%
Graduation
66%
Student body
2K
Median SAT/ACT
1145/25
Goucher College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$50K
Acceptance
80%
Graduation
72%
Student body
1K
Washington College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$10K
Acceptance
78%
Graduation
69%
Student body
8K
Salisbury University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$8K
Acceptance
81%
Graduation
43%
Student body
5K
Median SAT/ACT
945/18
Bowie State University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$15K
Acceptance
79%
Graduation
72%
Student body
2K
Median SAT/ACT
1175/25
St. Mary's College of Maryland’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$46K
Acceptance
81%
Graduation
63%
Student body
2K
McDaniel College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$9K
Acceptance
74%
Graduation
53%
Student body
4K
Median SAT/ACT
1030/20
Frostburg State University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$25K
Acceptance
94%
Graduation
42%
Student body
<1K
Median SAT/ACT
925/20
Washington Adventist University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$9K
Acceptance
62%
Graduation
41%
Student body
3K
Median SAT/ACT
940/17
University of Maryland Eastern Shore’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$43K
Acceptance
71%
Graduation
61%
Student body
2K
Hood College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$7K
Acceptance
40%
Graduation
30%
Student body
2K
Median SAT/ACT
895/18
Coppin State University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$38K
Acceptance
89%
Graduation
62%
Student body
3K
Median SAT/ACT
1100/21
Stevenson University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$8K
Graduation
18%
Student body
35K
University of Maryland Global Campus’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$45K
Acceptance
80%
Graduation
63%
Student body
2K
Median SAT/ACT
1095/21
Mount St. Mary's University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$40K
Acceptance
62%
Graduation
49%
Student body
1K
Median SAT/ACT
1020/21
Notre Dame of Maryland University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$36K
Acceptance
61%
Graduation
66%
Student body
<1K
Median SAT/ACT
1320/29
Many 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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