Liberal arts colleges are a great option for students seeking a well-rounded education in an intimate campus setting. The best liberal arts colleges in South Carolina offer a diverse selection of degree programs with opportunities for a highly individualized educational experience.
The 31 public schools range in tuition from $5,000 to $17,000. The largest institution, the University of South Carolina (U of SC), is right in the middle, totaling $11,000 for fees. Located in Columbia, U of SC has over 30,000 students in attendance and offers over 300 degree options. Aside from the technical and community colleges in the state, there are four universities under $10,000. At $17,000, the Medical University of South Carolina is the most expensive public school in the state.
Find college admissions consultants in your state.
In addition, over 25 private schools, 17 with religious affiliations, offer academic settings with small student populations, none exceeding 3,500. Though it is the most expensive at $50,000, Furman University boasts an 84% graduation rate. With Methodist connections, Wofford College charges a tuition of $44,000, and it bears noting that the campus is situated on a national arboretum. The University of South Carolina School of Law is one of the nation’s oldest law schools and the state’s only nonprofit law school. Graduates of the school have the opportunity to receive financial assistance from the Public Interest Law Loan Forgiveness Fund if they are employed in the field of public interest law.
Along the 60-mile stretch of beaches in South Carolina is iconic Myrtle Beach, home to one of the world’s tallest Ferris wheels. Cypress swamps, military museums, and tea gardens add to the southern charm of this state. And with over 50 higher education institutions, students have plenty of options for where to earn their associate, bachelor’s, master’s, or doctoral degree.
Check out the top programs available, and earn your degree in The Palmetto State.
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.
A liberal arts college is a school that puts a premium on undergraduate studies and offers a broad range of subjects for students to study. A college of liberal arts typically provides smaller class sizes, more direct engagement with professors, and, most importantly, the opportunity to sample a wide range of subject areas on the way to a bachelor’s degree. We’ve identified 31 liberal arts colleges in South Carolina. To be ranked among the best liberal arts colleges in South Carolina, schools must fully accredited institutions.
Tuition + fees
$13K
Acceptance
74%
Graduation
66%
Student body
10K
Median SAT/ACT
1170/25
College of Charleston’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$53K
Acceptance
65%
Graduation
81%
Student body
3K
Median SAT/ACT
1330/30
Furman University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$12K
Acceptance
70%
Graduation
46%
Student body
10K
Median SAT/ACT
1090/21
Coastal Carolina University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$50K
Acceptance
53%
Graduation
80%
Student body
2K
Median SAT/ACT
1270/28
Wofford College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$21K
Graduation
65%
Student body
3K
Bob Jones University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$13K
Acceptance
80%
Graduation
71%
Student body
4K
Median SAT/ACT
1140/22
The Citadel’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$12K
Acceptance
57%
Graduation
49%
Student body
3K
Median SAT/ACT
1035/20
Lander University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$11K
Acceptance
94%
Graduation
30%
Student body
2K
Median SAT/ACT
915/16
South Carolina State University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$16K
Acceptance
64%
Graduation
61%
Student body
5K
Median SAT/ACT
1055/21
Winthrop University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$11K
Acceptance
75%
Graduation
44%
Student body
3K
Median SAT/ACT
1005/18
Francis Marion University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$11K
Acceptance
56%
Graduation
41%
Student body
3K
Median SAT/ACT
1050/20
University of South Carolina Aiken’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$31K
Acceptance
59%
Graduation
57%
Student body
3K
Median SAT/ACT
1035/23
Anderson University, South Carolina’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$37K
Acceptance
60%
Graduation
52%
Student body
<1K
Median SAT/ACT
1025/19
Erskine College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$13K
Acceptance
65%
Graduation
19%
Student body
<1K
Allen University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$17K
Acceptance
73%
Graduation
28%
Student body
2K
Median SAT/ACT
925/17
Benedict College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$41K
Acceptance
71%
Graduation
64%
Student body
1K
Median SAT/ACT
1115/22
Presbyterian College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$20K
Acceptance
82%
Graduation
52%
Student body
1K
Median SAT/ACT
1115/19
Converse University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$12K
Acceptance
60%
Graduation
47%
Student body
5K
Median SAT/ACT
1015/19
University of South Carolina Upstate’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$28K
Acceptance
57%
Graduation
52%
Student body
1K
Median SAT/ACT
985/18
Newberry College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$22K
Acceptance
65%
Graduation
51%
Student body
2K
Median SAT/ACT
1055/23
North Greenville University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$11K
Acceptance
67%
Graduation
34%
Student body
2K
Median SAT/ACT
1015/19
University of South Carolina Beaufort’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$17K
Acceptance
65%
Graduation
50%
Student body
2K
Median SAT/ACT
940/17
Claflin University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$29K
Acceptance
54%
Graduation
44%
Student body
3K
Median SAT/ACT
1110/25
Charleston Southern University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$26K
Acceptance
56%
Graduation
54%
Student body
1K
Median SAT/ACT
1050/20
Southern Wesleyan University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$15K
Graduation
26%
Student body
<1K
Morris College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
In pursuing a bachelor’s degree, you will need to choose between three kinds of schools: research universities, liberal arts colleges, and online colleges.
Research universities are colleges and universities whose faculty are active in research and publishing. These schools offer a wide array of doctoral programs, especially in the sciences. They tend to be big, with tens of thousands of students.
Do you prefer a larger university setting, such as largest public university in your state? Research universities are typically big, offering degrees in many different disciplines. Is a big high-powered research environment the thing for you. If not, you should think about a liberal arts college. In deciding on an undergraduate institution, ask yourself what sort of environment will best help you to be happy and excel.
Often referred to as “teaching colleges” liberal arts colleges put a premium on undergraduate studies and offers a broad range of subjects for students to study. A college of liberal arts typically provides smaller class sizes, more direct engagement with professors, and, most importantly, the opportunity to sample a wide range of subject areas on the way to a bachelor’s degree.
Online colleges are typically the same colleges and universities you could attend in-person, but for certain degree programs the college or unviersity has made the degree programs available to be completed online. For over 5 million students, online degree programs allow students to earn their degrees in the most flexible format available. Online degrees are as respected as the on-campus degress you could earn from the same schools. There’s usually no disctinction between the two degrees, and your degree and transcript will not say that the degree was earned online. Online degree programs are offered by a vast majority of colleges and universities, and the number of offering continues to grow. Whehter you are searching for an associate, bachelor’s, master’s, or doctorate, there’s a good chance you can earn your degree online from a respectable online college.
If you interested in an online bachelor’s degree, check out what the best online colleges offer, or search our online degrees for the exact program that interests you. In either case, you will find well respected colleges and universities that offer online degrees.
Back to TopMany 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.