2025 College Rankings

Pomona College fails to deliver on the promise of a robust education. The school falls in the bottom 25 percent for administrative support for free speech. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) gives the school a “yellow” rating, meaning that the school’s policies could easily be exploited to restrict speech. Less than 20 percent of students say that it is “extremely” or “very” clear that the administration protects free speech on campus. Furthermore, only 20 percent of students say that it is “extremely” or “very” likely that the administration would defend a speaker’s right to express controversial views over offensive speech. Pomona maintains a bias-response system, which encourages faculty and students to squelch the airing of unpopular opinions.

Nearly 40 percent of students tell FIRE that they self-censor in conversations with other students at least a few times a week. Pomona occupies the second to last place of all 100 schools that we studied in terms of student comfort with and support for free expression. According to a self-reported survey, Pomona students do not feel that they can freely express themselves in the classroom, in their written work, or with their professors. That discomfort extends to campus life: Pomona students do not feel that they can speak freely during informal discussions or on social media without fear of retribution. The culture of self-censorship was exposed in vivid detail in 2024, when a former English department chair revealed to The Chronicle of Higher Education that the college had stifled free inquiry among his colleagues and students to the extent that the department was nonfunctional.

Students are politically intolerant, and their views inevitably skew leftward. FIRE’s survey found that students are far more willing to say that right-wing speakers should be barred from campus than they are to say the same of left-wing speakers. A surprisingly high number of students also tell FIRE that they believe that attempts to disrupt campus speech are broadly acceptable. In fact, nearly 40 percent say that it is sometimes or always acceptable to shout down a campus speaker. About the same number say that blocking a campus speaker is sometimes or always acceptable. Some students are willing to go even further: 12 percent say that it is sometimes or always acceptable to use violence when faced with an unpopular speaker.

Pomona’s faculty is even less ideologically diverse. Students place faculty members, on average, toward the liberal end of the ideological continuum. That perception is borne out in the ideological makeup of faculty campaign contributions. In the 2023–24 cycle, not a single dollar went to conservative or Republican causes. This marks a sharp contrast with Pomona’s sister school, Claremont McKenna University, where the faculty was relatively more balanced in this category. Faculty themselves feel that they cannot express a dissenting opinion: Pomona ranks in the bottom 5 percent for its faculty speech climate.

The curriculum at Pomona leaves much to be desired. The American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) gives Pomona a D in its annual 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. We also fault the school for requiring students to enroll in courses focusing on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) while neglecting to impose the same graduation requirements for history or government classes.

At least repaying the bill is not typically onerous. Pomona makes it into our top 10 percent in the time it takes to pay back the cost of education—usually less than a year. However, Pomona graduates, even with this value added, tend to underperform on projected salaries ten years after initial enrollment by about $19,000.