Colleges That Offer Small Classes on a Budget

Here are 30 well-regarded and affordable colleges with lots of small classes.

November 24, 2009 RSS Feed Print

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Attending a big, affordable public university doesn't doom a student to huge lecture halls. U.S. News has found dozens of lower-priced colleges in which at least half of all classes have fewer than 20 students. Beware, though: Many times these smaller classes are led by graduate students or part-time professors who may not have office hours or the expertise of a full-time professor.

The chart below lists colleges and universities where in-state tuition and fees were under $10,000 in 2008. The percentage of small classes—those with 19 or fewer students—is in bold.

Institution Name	% Classes with 19 of Fewer Students	Total Number of Undergraduates	% Faculty Who Are Full-time	Selectivity*	In-State Tuition and Fees	Out-of-State Tuition and Fees
SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry	77	1633	84	more selective	$5,793	$13,693
University of Montana—Western	73	1190	70	less selective	$4,866	$13,050
New College of Florida	66	785	83	more selective	$4,805	$26,407
SUNY College—Potsdam	65	3652	71	selective	$6,170	$14,070
Dakota State University (South Dakota)	64	2296	74	less selective	$6,872	$8,245
University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma	62	1158	60	selective	$4,440	$10,560
Concord University (West Virginia)	62	2816	56	selective	$4,976	$11,052
New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology	62	1344	83	more selective	$4,607	$13,118
University of California—Berkeley	60	25151	74	most selective	$8,352	$30,022
Montana Tech of the University of Montana	60	2293	66	selective	$5,833	$16,109
Bemidji State University (Minnesota)	57	4223	76	selective	$7,262	$7,262
University of South Carolina—Aiken	57	3078	68	selective	$7,950	$15,682
University of South Carolina—Upstate	55	4999	55	selective	$8,817	$17,459
University of California—Los Angeles	54	26536	75	most selective	$8,228	$29,897
SUNY—Fredonia	54	5178	57	selective	$6,258	$14,158
Winston-Salem State University (North Carolina)	54	5975	82	less selective	$3,522	$12,508
Western Washington University	53	13406	70	selective	$6,159	$17,190
SUNY—Oswego	52	7971	62	selective	$6,651	$14,551
Keene State College (New Hampshire)	52	5147	45	less selective	$9,314	$17,484
University of Tennessee—Martin	51	7127	50	selective	$5,510	$16,790
Lander University (South Carolina)	51	2555	62	less selective	$8,770	$16,570
Alice Lloyd College (Kentucky)	51	609	76	more selective	$9,000	$9,000
University of Illinois—Springfield	51	2889	59	selective	$9,168	$18,318
University of Central Arkansas	50	11048	72	more selective	$6,698	$12,153
University of Colorado—Boulder	50	26725	65	more selective	$7,932	$28,186
Murray State University (Kentucky)	50	8171	71	selective	$5,976	$16,236
SUNY College of Technology—Alfred	50	3282	N/A	less selective	$6,162	$14,062
University of Iowa	50	20823	95	more selective	$6,824	$22,198
University of Montevallo (Alabama)	50	2572	67	selective	$7,010	$13,550

* Schools are designated "most selective," "more selective," "selective," "less selective," or "least selective," based on a formula that accounts for enrollees' test scores and class standing and the school's acceptance rate (the percentage of applicants who are accepted).

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acai berry diet pills in stores of 11:28AM May 19, 2010

US News and World Report ranks everything and I sometimes wonder how accurate or true their information really is when it comes to plopping institutions into categories. I have noticed this with their Top Hospitals ranking too - often the decisions make zero sense.
In this case, how can they call UCLA or U Cal Berkley "Most Competitive" when both colleges have such a huge student population base and they are both state universities? They cater to all levels of academic ability and their teaching staff is just as good as those on the other side of the country, in the SUNY system of NY State.

Souzie of FL 1:46AM May 09, 2010

The University of Montana Western richly deserves the recognition it has received by U.S. News and World Report. After a 15-year struggle, the campus became the first public baccalaureate university in U.S. history to adopt an immersion-learning scheduling system where students take one class at a time for 18 days (yep, we stole it from CC). We have come from nowhere to recently rank as the 18th best baccalaureate campus in a 15-state region of the west, and our efforts were acknowledged by the Carnegie Foundation and CASE with the U.S. Professor of the Year award for baccalaureate campuses, given to one of the original "block heads" on the faculty (me)!
The great story here is that faculty, with the support of a few key administrators changed an entire campus. Faculty relinquished the podium and now work in an aboriginal learning relationship with students on projects that make a difference to society. The environment of this change was most improbable. We are talking about a campus in a highly conservative environment (politically and locally), with little money, little support for change, low salaries for all employees and downright hostility from every direction to change of any kind.
This is a great story in American higher education just waiting to be told and assessed. The learning outcomes and student satisfaction surveys that we have conducted show phenomenal early results (we adopted this in 2005). However, an exhaustive assessment of learning, faculty reaction and leadership processes that allowed this to happen are all just waiting for some bright folks to grab this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for educational research.
To learn more, check us out on the web (http://www.umwestern.edu/) or drop me a line for reprints of a recent paper on this historic transformation. Thanks.....Rob

Rob Thomas of MT 12:24PM February 02, 2010