Public colleges and universities account for almost 75 percent of all undergraduate students in the U.S. The best public colleges in Oklahoma provide broad access to reputable degree programs, affordable tuition, and sprawling educational communities.
Less than half of the schools in Oklahoma are private schools. However, students who attend one these schools can expect a more intimate college experience, as each has a student population smaller than 4,000 students. The largest private school, the University of Tulsa, offers degrees in fields like education, criminal justice, and literature, with tuition fees around $41,000. The public schools tend to be more cost-friendly, with tuition ranging from $4,000 to $9,000 per year.
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The University of Oklahoma, the state’s largest public school, costs about $9,000 and serves over 24,000 students. Here, students can partake in competitive on-campus programs in fields like communications and social work, or pursue one of the 30 graduate degrees and certificates online. Oklahoma is also home to several religiously affiliated schools, like Oral Roberts University and Bacone College. Students hoping to pursue a career as a physician, physician’s assistant, or dentist may also want to consider earning their degree here as the state offers several loan forgiveness programs to those who qualify.
The state of Oklahoma is serious about its food — so serious they even declared an official state meal, which consists of fried okra, cornbread, barbecue pork, squash, biscuits, sausage and gravy, grits, corn, strawberries, chicken fried steak, black-eyed peas, and pecan pie. Those hoping to feed both their bellies and their minds can attend one of Oklahoma’s more than 40 colleges and universities.
To learn more about earning your degree in Oklahoma, check out some of the state’s top programs.
Public and private colleges and universities operate under different business models. Public colleges and universities are owned by the state and receive both state and federal funding to operate. Private colleges and universities are private companies with private funding. If you’re looking at the pros and cons of private vs. public colleges, consider that many public colleges provide diverse course offerings, influential professors, and an excellent return on your investment.
Public colleges are schools that receive most of their funding from tax revenues. As a result, the cost of a bachelor’s degree at a public university is often lower than the equivalent cost at a private college — especially for students attending a public school in their home state. Attending a college in-state is usually the cheapest option. Private universities and colleges can be very competitive with their funding opportunities, so do not simply believe that private colleges are always going to be more expensive. According to National Center for Educational Statistics, the average annual cost (tuition, fees, room and board for full-time students) at a public university was slightly over $20,000. In contrast, private universities cost, on average, nearly $43,000 annually. But in the end, the cost of college comes down to each student’s academic and financial situation.
This list is composed entirely of public colleges and universities that offer bachelor’s degrees. We’ve identified 15 public universities in Oklahoma. To be included in our list of the best public colleges in Oklahoma, shcools must receive direct funding from the state, be fully accredited, and offer a broad range of bachelor’s degress.
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
$9K
Acceptance
83%
Graduation
72%
Student body
24K
Median SAT/ACT
1210/26
University of Oklahoma’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$9K
Acceptance
67%
Graduation
64%
Student body
21K
Median SAT/ACT
1170/25
Oklahoma State University–Stillwater’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$8K
Acceptance
80%
Graduation
35%
Student body
12K
University of Central Oklahoma’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$7K
Acceptance
99%
Graduation
36%
Student body
6K
Median SAT/ACT
998/21
Northeastern State University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$8K
Acceptance
93%
Graduation
40%
Student body
4K
Southwestern Oklahoma State University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$7K
Graduation
18%
Student body
2K
Langston University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$7K
Acceptance
96%
Graduation
39%
Student body
3K
Median SAT/ACT
1035/20
East Central University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$7K
Acceptance
79%
Graduation
31%
Student body
4K
Southeastern Oklahoma State University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$6K
Graduation
23%
Student body
3K
Cameron University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$8K
Acceptance
70%
Graduation
26%
Student body
2K
Median SAT/ACT
1020/19
Northwestern Oklahoma State University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$7K
Graduation
25%
Student body
3K
Rogers State University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$7K
Graduation
27%
Student body
1K
Oklahoma Panhandle State University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$8K
Acceptance
64%
Graduation
41%
Student body
<1K
Median SAT/ACT
912/21
University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$6K
Graduation
41%
Student body
2K
Oklahoma State University Institute of Technology’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$5K
Graduation
17%
Student body
4K
Oklahoma State University–Oklahoma City’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.