According to College Navigator, Illinois has 12 public colleges, 61 private non-profit colleges, and six private for-profit colleges.
College Board notes that the average in-state college student paid $14,670 in tuition at public Illinois colleges during the 2021-22 school year.
The average full-time undergraduate student in the U.S. received $14,800 in financial aid during the 2020-21 school year.
This list features some of the best brick-and-mortar schools in Illinois. Each school featured is a nonprofit, accredited institution — either public or private — with a high standard of academic quality for post-secondary institutions. We included liberal arts colleges and research universities as well as small, midsize, and large institutions. Next, we compared this comprehensive list to a list of aggregated college rankings from reputable publications like the U.S. News & World Report among others to simplify a student’s college search. We pored through these rankings so students don’t have to.
The colleges on our list are accredited by the Higher Learning Commission (HLC), a reputable organization that examines the objectives, quality, and overall effectiveness of education programs in the central United States.
We evaluated each school on tuition costs, admission, retention and graduation rates, faculty, and reputation as well as the student resources provided for on-campus students. Then we calculated the Intelligent Score on a scale of 0 to 100. Read more about our ranking methodology.
There are many considerations students should keep in mind when selecting a college. One factor that is often overlooked is the local job market. Before choosing a state in which to attend college, consider local employment opportunities. As of October 2021, the top five industries that employed the most people in Illinois were trade, transportation, and utilities; professional and business services; education and health services; goods-producing; and government.
For jobseekers with a bachelor’s degree, the five fastest-growing careers in Illinois are agents and talent managers, data scientists, logisticians, medical and health services managers, and actuaries.
To get a sense of the labor market in the state, here are some of the companies that made the list of largest employers in Illinois: Abbott Laboratories, Allstate Corporation, Deloitte, Unity Point Optimum Health, and the University of Illinois at Chicago.
While researching colleges in Illinois, it’s important to consider financial aid. Below is a list of federal and state resources that offer grants, scholarships, and financial aid opportunities for undergraduate students in Illinois.