2025 College Rankings

Brown University, though an Ivy League institution, does not rank highly in our estimation. The school is heavily influenced by an expansive Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) bureaucracy—more than 70 percent of faculty job postings require DEI statements. Brown is a frequent recipient of the Higher Education Excellence in Diversity (HEED) award, a distinction that it celebrates but that we regard as an embarrassment. One of the few bright spots is that Brown still requires applicants to submit SAT or ACT scores, suggesting that—in this respect, at least—academic merit retains some priority over diversity.

Brown exhibits very little ideological diversity among its student body. We rank the school in the bottom 5 percent on this measure, a placement that becomes understandable when examining its extracurricular landscape: liberal student organizations outnumber conservative ones three to one. According to data from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), there are 8.5 liberal students for every conservative. It’s no surprise, then, that self-censorship is a serious issue—nearly half of students report feeling personally offended by classmates’ perspectives at least a few times each month.

Brown’s faculty are as ideologically uniform as its students. On a 7-point scale where 1 represents “very liberal” and 7 “very conservative,” students rate their professors, on average, at 2.3. Few faculty members express views outside the left-wing orthodoxy. A vivid example came when Rasha Alawieh, a Brown professor and practicing physician, disclosed that she had traveled to Lebanon to attend the 2024 funeral of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and affirmed her adherence to his teachings. After she was deported for ties to a designated terrorist group, fellow Brown faculty rallied to her defense—a dispiriting indication of the school’s political leanings.

Brown’s administration has handled activist demands poorly. The university has embraced symbolic gestures—land acknowledgments, preferred pronouns in bios, and pledges to protect the environment. Last spring, following a wave of anti-Semitic protests, Brown caved to demands for its board to consider divestment from Israel. Though the board rejected divestment, the vote gave an air of legitimacy to the divestment movement.

Brown’s administration has also been weak on free speech. The university maintains a bias-response system that, despite its stated aim of protecting expression, often has the opposite effect. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) gives Brown a “yellow” rating for its speech policies, indicating that its policies could easily be used to suppress speech.

Given these shortcomings, it’s no surprise that Brown’s curriculum is also in need of serious reform. The American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) gives the university an F 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. One notable exception is the Political Theory Project, which earns praise for sponsoring speakers, offering postdoctoral fellowships, and providing undergraduate courses on “the institutions and ideas that make societies free.”

That said, Brown serves its graduates well economically. Based on incoming students’ SAT scores and Pell Grant eligibility, alumni earn about the same as would be expected, and they pursue advanced degrees at higher rates than would be expected. Ten years after enrollment, Brown graduates earn a median income in line with what is expected. On average, it takes them just over 1.5 years to recoup the cost of their education.