Small colleges in Minnesota are a great option for students interested in a more intimate campus experience, more personal attention from excellent professors, and more immediate access to support services. Whether the focus is on the technical or on the liberal arts, small colleges give you the chance to pursue a well-rounded education while working closely with classmates and professors in a dynamic community atmosphere.
California’s higher education institutes span across the entire state, allowing students to study by the beach, in the forest, in small towns, and in large cities. There are over 30 high quality online degrees programs that would literally allow you to study from anywhere in California, or the world. The largest university, the University of California, Los Angeles, serves nearly 44,000 students and offers a tuition rate around $13,000. This isn’t the only school with a large student body though. California is home to 23 colleges and universities with student populations of over 20,000 students.
Find college admissions consultants in your state.
However, more than half of the state’s schools serve smaller student populations, offering plenty of options for students who crave a more intimate campus experience. Additionally, California boasts 50 religiously affiliated schools. Many of these schools have high graduation rates, though tuition costs can range greatly, from $8,000 at Bethesda University up to $54,000 at Pepperdine University.
Additionally, many of California’s colleges and universities boast influential faculty and alumni, including Neil Armstrong, Jerry Lewis, and Weird Al
Yankovic. In addition to famous alumni and professors, California’s schools are also home to some of the country’s top degree programs, including nursing, business, religious studies, education, literature, and law.
Though Hollywood has given an inside look into California’s most popular landmarks and attractions, these one-of-a-kind places aren’t the only reason people flock to The Golden State. With hundreds of colleges and universities to choose from, students have countless opportunities to further their education in California.
To learn more about earning your degree in California, check out some of the state’s top programs and career paths.
The following list of the best small colleges and universities in Minnesota is composed mainly of four-year undergraduate schools (though a handful also offer graduate programs). We’ve identified 22 small colleges in Minnesota. The list below of the 30 best small colleges in Minnesota. To be included schools must fully accredited, and must have student body populations below 5,000 students.
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.
Tuition + fees
$60K
Acceptance
21%
Graduation
94%
Student body
2K
Median SAT/ACT
1450/32
Carleton College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$61K
Acceptance
39%
Graduation
93%
Student body
2K
Median SAT/ACT
1415/31
Macalester College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$46K
Acceptance
69%
Graduation
65%
Student body
3K
Median SAT/ACT
1130/22
Hamline University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$53K
Acceptance
51%
Graduation
85%
Student body
3K
Median SAT/ACT
1310/29
St. Olaf College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$50K
Acceptance
71%
Graduation
78%
Student body
2K
Gustavus Adolphus College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$28K
Acceptance
58%
Graduation
68%
Student body
2K
Median SAT/ACT
1149/24
Concordia College ’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$41K
Acceptance
73%
Graduation
59%
Student body
3K
Median SAT/ACT
1180/20
Augsburg University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$14K
Acceptance
65%
Graduation
60%
Student body
1K
Median SAT/ACT
1165/24
University of Minnesota Morris’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$50K
Acceptance
84%
Graduation
85%
Student body
2K
Median SAT/ACT
1147/25
College of Saint Benedict and Saint John's University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$46K
Acceptance
76%
Graduation
64%
Student body
4K
Median SAT/ACT
1175/24
St. Catherine University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$10K
Acceptance
69%
Graduation
46%
Student body
4K
Bemidji State University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$39K
Acceptance
84%
Graduation
62%
Student body
4K
Median SAT/ACT
1113/23
Saint Mary's University of Minnesota’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$40K
Acceptance
87%
Graduation
74%
Student body
4K
Median SAT/ACT
1160/24
Bethel University ’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$13K
Acceptance
72%
Graduation
51%
Student body
2K
University of Minnesota Crookston’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$9K
Acceptance
81%
Graduation
48%
Student body
3K
Median SAT/ACT
997/21
Southwest Minnesota State University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$39K
Acceptance
73%
Graduation
69%
Student body
4K
College of St. Scholastica’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$34K
Acceptance
92%
Graduation
69%
Student body
3K
Median SAT/ACT
1220/24
University of Northwestern – St. Paul’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$27K
Acceptance
93%
Graduation
53%
Student body
1K
Median SAT/ACT
1077/21
North Central University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$29K
Acceptance
65%
Graduation
62%
Student body
<1K
Median SAT/ACT
1050/23
Bethany Lutheran College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$24K
Acceptance
97%
Graduation
49%
Student body
1K
Dunwoody College of Technology’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$24K
Acceptance
69%
Graduation
48%
Student body
4K
Concordia University, St. Paul’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$28K
Acceptance
47%
Graduation
60%
Student body
1K
Median SAT/ACT
1090/20
Crown College ’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
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.
Get the latest Academic Influence news, information, and rankings with our upcoming newsletter.
Stay informed!