Best Small Colleges in South Carolina 2025

Badge for BEST IN SOUTH CAROLINA SMALL COLLEGES

By Dr. James Barham
Reviewed By Jenn Finley

Published: May 4, 2021
Updated: Oct 21, 2024

Key Takeaways

South Carolina’s small colleges offer a large range of degrees so that every student can find a topic of interest to study.
The best small colleges in South Carolina offer students a more intimate campus experience, resulting in more personal attention from professors.
Small colleges in South Carolina offer immediate access to support services for their students.

Table of Contents

10 Best Small Colleges in South Carolina 2025

Bob Jones University
+2
Furman University
–1
The Citadel
+1
Wofford College
–2
South Carolina State University
+1
Francis Marion University
+1
Presbyterian College
+6
Anderson University
+1
Charleston Southern University
+10
Erskine College

2025 Ranking Update

Our Influence Ranking Engine™ leverages machine learning to track the real-world influence of colleges and universities over time. Below you’ll see which schools gained or lost ground for the 2025 school year.

Bob Jones University moved up 2 spots to the top position in our 2025 ranking of the best small colleges in South Carolina. Presbyterian College moved up a whopping 6 positions to move into the top 10 this year.

BJU’s focus on affordability and value is recognized, ranking among the top universities in the South for both academic quality and cost-effectiveness. These enhancements, along with ongoing integration of a biblical worldview into the curriculum, provide a comprehensive education that helps students develop critical thinking skills grounded in faith.

Presbyterian College has positioned itself as “America’s Innovative Service College” by appealing to students seeking a unique, service-oriented education in South Carolina. The school has also developed the PC Flex Plan, allowing students to graduate in three years, rather than four.

The following list of the best small colleges and universities in South Carolina is composed mainly of four-year undergraduate schools (though a handful also offer graduate programs). We’ve identified 27 small colleges in South Carolina. The list below of the best small colleges in South Carolina. To be included schools must fully accredited, and must have student body populations below 5,000 students.

How do we determine South Carolina's best small colleges and universities?

Methodology

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.