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 Washington offer a diverse selection of degree programs with opportunities for a highly individualized educational experience.
Of the 40 public options, the University of Washington in Seattle is the largest. Roughly 40,000 students attend classes in fields like nursing, education, biology, and computer science. This public research institution is also affordable, charging about $11,000 for tuition. In fact, none of the public schools in Washington exceed $12,000 in price. This includes community colleges, technical colleges, and four-year universities, making Washington a uniquely affordable place to earn your associate, bachelor’s, master’s, or doctoral degree.
Find college admissions consultants in your state.
Washington also has 24 private institutions. Of those, nine are religious. The most widely known of these, Catholic university Gonzaga enrolls roughly 7,000 students, at a cost of $40,000, in areas such as religious studies, engineering, and law. Central Washington University (CWU) is a smaller public school, serving just over 12,000 students, and has a tuition of $8,000. With 15% of its population being Hispanic, CWU is now recognized as an emerging Hispanic-Serving Institution. Washington health professions also have the opportunity to receive funding for loan repayment through Washington’s Health Professional Loan Repayment Program.
Set in the Pacific Northwest, Washington offers ocean beaches and lush forests. In fact, over half the state is covered in forests, earning Washington its nickname as The Evergreen State. Viewers atop the Space Needle in Seattle can take in the sights of Puget Sound, Mount Rainier, and both the Cascades and Olympic mountain ranges. In addition, prospective students can choose from over 60 higher education institutions in the state.
Check out the top higher education programs and find an affordable degree in Washington.
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 42 liberal arts colleges in Washington. To be ranked among the 30 best liberal arts colleges in Washington, schools must fully accredited institutions.
Tuition + fees
$9K
Acceptance
94%
Graduation
68%
Student body
15K
Median SAT/ACT
1170/25
Western Washington University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$56K
Acceptance
54%
Graduation
86%
Student body
2K
Median SAT/ACT
1345/30
Whitman College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$8K
Acceptance
98%
Graduation
45%
Student body
3K
Median SAT/ACT
1084/22
Evergreen State College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$8K
Acceptance
79%
Graduation
53%
Student body
11K
Median SAT/ACT
1025/20
Eastern Washington University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$56K
Acceptance
87%
Graduation
77%
Student body
3K
University of Puget Sound’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$8K
Acceptance
86%
Graduation
58%
Student body
11K
Median SAT/ACT
1060/20
Central Washington University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$48K
Acceptance
86%
Graduation
71%
Student body
3K
Median SAT/ACT
1185/26
Pacific Lutheran University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$35K
Acceptance
38%
Graduation
53%
Student body
1K
Median SAT/ACT
1264/27
DigiPen Institute of Technology’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$14K
Student body
1K
City University of Seattle’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$31K
Graduation
59%
Student body
2K
Walla Walla University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$4K
Graduation
34%
Student body
10K
Bellevue College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$48K
Acceptance
91%
Graduation
77%
Student body
3K
Median SAT/ACT
1170/25
Whitworth University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$12K
Acceptance
86%
Graduation
60%
Student body
5K
Median SAT/ACT
1085/20
University of Washington Tacoma’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$12K
Acceptance
88%
Graduation
63%
Student body
6K
Median SAT/ACT
1140/23
University of Washington Bothell’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$41K
Acceptance
94%
Graduation
61%
Student body
2K
Median SAT/ACT
1070/20
Saint Martin's University’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$6K
Graduation
33%
Student body
6K
Columbia Basin College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$4K
Graduation
46%
Student body
2K
Peninsula College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$5K
Graduation
27%
Student body
6K
Seattle Central College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$4K
Graduation
34%
Student body
3K
Wenatchee Valley College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$4K
Graduation
38%
Student body
5K
Highline College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$4K
Graduation
30%
Student body
6K
Spokane Community College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$5K
Graduation
39%
Student body
3K
Lake Washington Institute of Technology’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$22K
Student body
<1K
Antioch University Seattle’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$34K
Acceptance
93%
Graduation
58%
Student body
1K
Median SAT/ACT
1135/23
Northwest University ’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$4K
Graduation
26%
Student body
4K
Spokane Falls Community College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$4K
Graduation
31%
Student body
4K
Skagit Valley College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$4K
Graduation
30%
Student body
5K
Olympic College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$17K
Graduation
52%
Student body
7K
Charter College ’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$5K
Graduation
42%
Student body
2K
Centralia College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$4K
Graduation
38%
Student body
8K
Green River College’s faculty and alumni have been influential in:
Tuition + fees
$4K
Graduation
30%
Student body
6K
Edmonds 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.
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