2025 College Rankings

Auburn University has seen significant improvement over the past two years, largely due to external pressure. In spring 2023, the Alabama state legislature banned Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) offices at public institutions. Auburn, a large land-grant university, responded swiftly. Today, it has no meaningful DEI bureaucracy, and almost none of its faculty job postings require diversity statements. The change is especially notable, given that Auburn had previously spent over $5 million on DEI—the most of any public college in Alabama.

Students at Auburn tend to enjoy campus life, and we rank the school first in the nation for social experience. Both The Princeton Review and Niche give high marks to its Greek life, athletics, party scene, and overall quality of life. These students, often rated among the happiest in the country, are also among the most ideologically diverse. According to the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), there are 1.8 conservative students for every liberal student at Auburn.

That ideological diversity is matched by a strong culture of political tolerance. FIRE reports no attempts to de-platform events in the past five years, and Auburn ranks in our top 3 for student political tolerance—how strongly students reject the blocking of events or the resorting to violence over controversial speech. Students report equal openness to speakers from both the left and the right. Unsurprisingly, self-censorship is rare—an indicator of healthy campus discourse.

Auburn faculty are also relatively ideologically diverse. Students place them near the center of the ideological spectrum, and campaign contributions bear this out: in the 2023–24 election cycle, 81 percent of faculty donations went to liberal or Democratic causes, while 18 percent supported conservative or Republican ones—a much more balanced ratio than at most peer institutions.

Auburn’s administration generally respects free expression. FIRE gives it a “green” speech code rating, meaning that its policies do not explicitly impede free speech. The administration is not dominated by activists—another benefit of state regulation of educational standards. Still, Auburn maintains a bias-response system, which undermines the school’s commitment to free speech.

Auburn’s curriculum is decent. The American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) gives the school a B 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. The school avoids DEI-focused coursework but doesn’t strongly emphasize civics or U.S. history, either.

Auburn falls short in postgraduation outcomes. It ranks in the bottom 20 percent of schools we studied for return on investment. Graduates take, on average, 3.2 years to recoup the cost of their education, well above our 2.3-year average. Nevertheless, its 93 percent retention rate outperforms expectations based on student demographics, and its six-year graduation rate of 81 percent meets predicted levels.