2025 College Rankings

Grinnell College has long served as a progressive bastion in the middle of a largely conservative Iowa. The school prides itself on standing apart from its surroundings; but in recent years, its commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) has imperiled its educational credibility.

The administration is firmly aligned with DEI orthodoxy. Every faculty job posting at Grinnell requires a diversity statement, and the school maintains a sprawling DEI bureaucracy, employing 8.5 administrators per 1,000 undergraduates. When the federal government in spring 2025 threatened to withhold funding from institutions with DEI mandates, Grinnell pledged to preserve its diversity infrastructure.

The school shows little regard for free speech. Just 23 percent of students told the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) that they believe that the administration supports free expression. Grinnell maintains a bias-response system to monitor and report speech that some may find offensive. FIRE gives the college a “red” speech code rating—the lowest possible—indicating that its policies actively restrict speech.

Grinnell’s faculty is ideologically lopsided. No professor belongs to the Academic Freedom Alliance or Heterodox Academy, organizations that promote free inquiry in the classroom, and students overwhelmingly perceive their instructors as liberal. On a scale where 1 is “very liberal” and 7 is “very conservative,” students rate faculty at an average of 2.4. In the 2023–24 election cycle, every dollar of faculty political donations went to Democratic or liberal candidates.

Student views are similarly unbalanced. For every conservative student, there are nine liberals, and no conservative political groups exist on campus. Tolerance for opposing views is low: 47 percent of students tell FIRE that it is “sometimes” or “always” acceptable to shout down controversial speakers, and 25 percent say the same about blocking others from attending such events. Unsurprisingly, self-censorship is widespread—just over 60 percent of students report silencing themselves at least once a month.

Grinnell’s curriculum falls short. The American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) gives the school 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. Grinnell places no emphasis on U.S. history or government in its graduation standards—a serious lapse in academic judgment.

Grinnell is a poor investment. On average, it takes 4.2 years to recoup the cost of attendance, nearly twice the overall average of 2.3 years. Graduates tend to experience slow career starts: median annual earnings ten years after initial enrollment are over $17,000 below expectations, based on students’ SAT scores and Pell Grant status—one of the largest shortfalls among the schools that we evaluated. Retention and graduation rates also lag behind projections. The retention rate is 93 percent, two points below expectations; and the six-year graduation rate is 88 percent, nearly three points lower than predicted.