Here are the best colleges and universities in Nevada. Our list will help you find the right kind of school for you.
From bigger universities, like the University of Nevada, Reno and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, to smaller schools, like Western Nevada College, students have plenty of options. While the University of Nevada, Las Vegas serves 25,000 students, making it Nevada’s largest higher education institute, their friendly rival university in the north, the University of Nevada, Reno, comes in at a close second, with just over 19,000 students.
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Though Western Nevada College is much smaller in student population, this school offers three campuses and seven other instructional sites across the state. With yearly tuition at the three major universities being under $10,000 and tuition at several smaller colleges coming in at $5,000 or less, students are sure to find an affordable degree. Additionally, those hoping to pursue a career in healthcare or a related field may want to consider attending one of Nevada’s three private colleges or the two biggest universities, all of which offer unique degrees in areas spanning radiology, pediatrics, and nursing. Nevada is also home to one Judaic college, Touro University Nevada, located in Henderson, a city just outside of Las Vegas.
Though most know Nevada for the glitzy casinos and attractions in Las Vegas, it is also home to beautiful Lake Tahoe, a favorite of skiers, hikers, beachgoers, locals, and vacationers. In Nevada, students can bet big and enjoy the outdoors, all while earning their degree at one of The Silver State’s exemplary colleges and universities.
Check out the top degree programs and future career opportunities offered in Nevada.
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 7 colleges and universities in Nevada that meet our criteria. This list of the top colleges in Nevada below focuses on schools that offer bachelor’s degrees. The ranking features fully accredited public and private colleges and universities in Nevada.
Tuition + fees
$8K
Acceptance
81%
Graduation
44%
Student body
26K
Median SAT/ACT
1140/22
University of Nevada, Las Vegas’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$9K
Acceptance
87%
Graduation
60%
Student body
19K
Median SAT/ACT
1180/23
University of Nevada, Reno’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$4K
Graduation
15%
Student body
21K
College of Southern Nevada’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$6K
Acceptance
90%
Graduation
23%
Student body
4K
Nevada State College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$4K
Graduation
27%
Student body
2K
Western Nevada College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$36K
Acceptance
46%
Graduation
44%
Student body
<1K
Median SAT/ACT
1040/20
Sierra Nevada University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$4K
Graduation
43%
Student body
2K
Great Basin 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.
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