2025 College Rankings

For an American university, Clemson University is a relatively balanced and ideologically stable place. Its student political identification ratio runs at 1.2 conservatives for every 1 liberal. Its student political organization makeup is similarly balanced, with three conservative student organizations and two liberal ones.

Students tend to be fairly politically tolerant. According to a survey conducted by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), most students view illiberal attempts to disrupt campus speech as “unacceptable.” For example, 55 percent say that it is “rarely” or “never” acceptable to shout down a speaker; 77 percent say that blocking a campus speech is “rarely” or “never” acceptable; and 84 percent say that it is “rarely” or “never” acceptable to use violence when protesting an unpopular or controversial speaker. Since 2019, there have been very few de-platforming attempts at Clemson.

Clemson’s open atmosphere is a fairly recent development. FIRE gives the school a “green” speech rating, meaning that the school’s policies do not seek to restrict speech. That is an upgrade from years past and is the result of greater efforts from Clemson’s administration to allow free speech to flourish on campus. The school, however, still maintains its bias-response system, which works against its goal of expanding public discourse.

The faculty is relatively ideologically diverse. We rank the school in the top 10 percent on this measure. Students regard faculty members, on average, as “moderate” on the ideological continuum. This relative moderation becomes apparent in the makeup of faculty campaign contributions, which, at least for a university, are more or less evenly balanced between left and right. That said, only a small percentage of Clemson faculty belong to Heterodox Academy or the Academic Freedom Alliance, two organizations that promote free inquiry on campus.

Clemson remains beholden to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives. The school frequently receives the Higher Education Excellence in Diversity (HEED) award, and we rank it in the bottom 20 percent in this category. At the same time, Clemson’s DEI bureaucracy is smaller than those of other schools: only about 5 percent of faculty job postings require a DEI statement. There is fewer than one DEI employee per 1,000 students.

Compared with that of many peers, Clemson’s curriculum is sound. 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. Students must take a course in U.S. history or government to graduate. We rank the quality of Clemson’s courses at number 3 overall (tied with two other schools: Hillsdale and Columbia). ACTA singles out the Clemson Institute for the Study of Capitalism as an area of excellence. Founded in 2005, the institute seeks to increase public awareness of the “moral foundations of capitalism” through courses, lectures, and conferences.

Clemson tends to serve its graduates well economically. The school overperforms in terms of graduation and retention rates, based on expectations set by SAT scores and the Pell Grants received by entrants. On the whole, it has a 92 percent retention rate and an 85 percent six-year graduation rate. The Princeton Review places its alumni network in the top 20 nationwide for public universities.