2025 College Rankings

Arizona State University has recently benefited from outside efforts to reform its educational system. We rank it highly for its strong heterodox infrastructure—a network of institutes that promote the study of civics and Western thought. The most prominent is the School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership (SCETL), founded in 2016 through the efforts of Governor Doug Ducey and the Arizona state legislature. SCETL exposes students to enduring debates in political and philosophical thought, from antiquity to the American Founding. In addition, the university’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences houses the Center for American Institutions, which engages students in cultural and policy issues through debates, discussions, and guest speaker events. The American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) identifies both SCETL and CAI as areas of excellence.

Arizona State University is less influenced by Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives than many other institutions. None of its faculty job postings requires a DEI statement; and while the university does maintain a DEI bureaucracy, it is relatively small—fewer than one DEI staffer per 1,000 students. That figure, however, should be viewed in context: ASU has more than 70,000 undergraduates, many of whom attend online. This spring, the Department of Education announced that ASU is among the schools under investigation for its DEI practices.

ASU is a relatively open environment for student expression. According to the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), 55 percent of students feel “very” or “somewhat” comfortable discussing controversial topics in class. Nearly half report feeling similarly comfortable expressing political views elsewhere on campus. Political tolerance among students ranks in our top 15 percent of schools surveyed and ideological pluralism near the top 30 percent.

The administration’s support for free speech reinforces this openness. ASU has endorsed the Chicago Principles, which promote free inquiry, and FIRE gives the school a “green” speech code rating—its highest designation. We rank ASU second-best in administrative support for free speech.

Outside these strengths, however, ASU remains a work in progress. Like many large universities, it is deeply entangled in administrative activism; we rank it in our bottom 25 percent on that front. Nearly every recent activist trend is reflected in its policies: land acknowledgments, environmental pledges, and the promoting of preferred pronouns in bios. ASU has not embraced institutional neutrality.

Leaving aside the centers of excellence noted above, the broader ASU curriculum is unremarkable. The American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) gives the school a C in its What Will They Learn? ratings, which assign letter grades based on how many of seven core subjects are required in the core curriculum or general education program. Notably, students must complete at least one DEI-focused course to graduate.

Many ASU students see only modest career benefits from their degree. Graduation and retention rates fall below expectations based on incoming students’ SAT scores and Pell Grant status. The six-year graduation rate, for instance, is just 67 percent, well below the predicted 75 percent.

The time it takes to repay the cost of education is more encouraging: about two years, on average, placing ASU roughly in the middle of the colleges we studied.