2025 College Rankings

Stony Brook University is one of the flagship campuses of the State University of New York system, which makes its embrace of some of the worst trends in higher education all the more disappointing.

Its record on DEI is mixed. While Stony Brook has a relatively small DEI bureaucracy and does not require DEI statements for faculty positions, the university recently received the Higher Education Excellence in Diversity (HEED) Award—signaling that it goes further than many peer institutions in promoting DEI.

At the same time, the administration shows little regard for free speech. Just 18 percent of students told the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) that it is “extremely” or “very” likely that the university would defend a speaker’s right to express controversial views. Students generally lack confidence in the administration’s support for free expression. Stony Brook also operates a bias-response system to police speech deemed offensive. FIRE assigns the school a “yellow” speech code rating, indicating policies that can easily be abused to suppress speech.

Stony Brook’s faculty is somewhat more ideologically diverse, at least relative to its peers. When asked to place their professors on an ideological spectrum, students generally rate them close to “moderate.” Still, the vast majority of faculty campaign contributions go to Democratic or liberal causes, and few faculty members belong to organizations that promote free inquiry in the classroom.

The student body is not particularly balanced. For every conservative student, there are nearly three liberals. Unsurprisingly, rates of self-censorship are high: 46 percent of students report feeling the need to censor themselves at least once a month, according to FIRE. That said, most students reject the idea of shouting down opposing views, and there have been no attempted de-platformings at Stony Brook over the past five years.

Social life on campus leaves something to be desired. Stony Brook ranks in the bottom half or third of our student satisfaction metrics.

Stony Brook’s curriculum is poor. The American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) gives the university a D 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. While the school mandates DEI-focused coursework for graduation, it does not require students to take classes in more foundational subjects such as U.S. history or government. We rank the classroom experience at Stony Brook in the bottom 10 percent.

Academically and financially, the school often falls short of expectations. Based on data from SAT scores and Pell Grant recipients, Stony Brook’s retention rate should be about 91 percent; in reality, it is only 88 percent. The six-year graduation rate follows a similar pattern—predicted at 84 percent but actually just 78 percent. Median earnings ten years after enrollment underperform expectations. There is one bright spot: on average, it takes just 1.8 years to recoup the cost of a Stony Brook education—slightly better than the national average of 2.3 years.