2025 College Rankings

Tufts University has succumbed to many of the most deleterious trends in higher education. Until recently, it had one of the most activist-driven administrations in the country. The school has embraced a wide array of commitments unrelated to its core educational mission—land acknowledgments, environmental pledges, and a system for encouraging preferred pronouns in bios. In the Students for Fair Admissions case before the Supreme Court, Tufts filed a brief supporting affirmative action—a disappointing signal that, in admissions, the university prioritizes diversity over merit. The school also maintains a sizable Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) bureaucracy, with more than five DEI staffers per 1,000 undergraduates. Nearly 45 percent of faculty job postings require a diversity statement.

One of Tufts’s most troubling failures of leadership came last year during the wave of radical anti-Semitic protests that swept campuses nationwide. Student activists established an encampment in clear violation of school policy. Yet administrators allowed it to remain for nearly a month while they engaged in fruitless negotiations with the protesters.

Tufts has a restrictive speech environment. Only 30 percent of students told the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) that it is “extremely” or “very” clear that the university protects free expression. The school operates a bias-response system designed to police speech deemed offensive. FIRE gives Tufts a “red” speech code rating, indicating that its policies explicitly restrict speech.

Tufts faculty lean heavily in one ideological direction. When asked to place their professors on a political spectrum—where 1 is “very liberal” and 7 is “very conservative”—students give an average rating of 2.3. In the 2023–24 election cycle, 99 percent of faculty campaign contributions went to liberal or Democratic causes. Still, there is a modest countercurrent: more than 1 percent of faculty are members of Heterodox Academy, an organization that promotes free inquiry on campus.

Student views at Tufts are similarly lopsided. For every conservative student, there are seven liberals. Tolerance for opposing viewpoints is low—especially when it comes to campus speakers. Students report to FIRE that they are far more accepting of left-wing speakers than of right-wing ones. Forty percent say that it is “sometimes” or “always” acceptable to shout down a speaker, while 20 percent say the same about blocking access to a speaker’s event. Unsurprisingly, Tufts struggles with self-censorship: half of all students report censoring themselves on campus at least once a month.

That said, Tufts’s curriculum fares better than many of its peers on our metrics. The American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) gives the university 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. While Tufts does not require courses in U.S. history or government, it also does not mandate DEI-focused classes—an increasingly rare restraint among elite institutions. On a positive note, the university’s recently announced Center for Expanding Viewpoints in Higher Education appears promising.

On our metrics of graduate success, Tufts also fares poorly. On average, it takes over four years to recoup the cost of attendance—well above our overall average of 2.3 years. Graduates tend to struggle early in their careers: median annual earnings ten years after initial enrollment are about $11,000 short of expectations, based on SAT scores and Pell Grant data.