2025 College Rankings

The University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill was chartered in 1789, the same year that the U.S. Constitution was adopted. Though the university has been badly marred by the trends affecting all of elite higher education, in recent years it has made strides indicating a serious commitment to reform and renewal of its educational mission.

The university incurred a self-imposed black eye by defending its discriminatory system of race-based admissions preferences all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court in 2022. After spending tens of millions in legal fees, it was handed a defeat at the high court in Students for Fair Admissions v. UNC.

But largely under the leadership of its board, the school has adopted institutional neutrality and committed to full compliance with the high court’s decision. It has closed its DEI office, though the former DEI chief retains an important position in the Office of the Provost. At present, none of its faculty job postings requires a diversity statement.

Administrators demonstrated strong leadership during the anti-Semitic protests that roiled campuses in the 2023–24 academic year. Extremists pitched an encampment on university grounds, in violation of university policy. Chancellor Lee Roberts ordered it cleared by police. At one point during the unauthorized protest, anti-Israel demonstrators tore down an American flag from the university flagpole and replaced it with a Palestinian flag. Chancellor Roberts personally walked to the flagpole and joined students in restoring the American flag. Still, serious concerns remain about the prevalence of radical anti-Semitic activism on campus.

On the whole, the school respects free speech. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) gives the school a “green” speech code rating, meaning that its policies do not restrict speech. About 36 percent of students tell FIRE that it is “extremely” or “very” clear that the administration values free speech. UNC’s leadership has endorsed the Chicago Principles, which promote the protection of free expression on campus.

Students are fairly ideologically balanced compared with those at peer institutions. For every conservative student at UNC, there are a little more than two liberal students. One area where UNC falls short is in its culture of self-censorship among students. Indeed, 60 percent of students tell FIRE that they censor themselves at least once a month, a high number in our rankings.

The curriculum at Chapel Hill needs reform. The American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) gives the school a C 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. Despite federal and state directives to the contrary, the university continues to require a DEI course on “inequalities in access to power among different social groups.”

One significant bright spot is the university’s recent decision to establish a new school dedicated to civic education, civil discourse, and the Western tradition. Launched in the fall of 2024, the School of Civic Life and Leadership (SCiLL) aims to prepare students for “the responsibilities of citizenship and civic leadership by fostering a free-speech culture and providing an education grounded in encouraging the human search for meaning,” as its inaugural dean put it. The school has over a dozen faculty, a minor in Civic Life and Leadership, hundreds of students enrolled in its courses, and a scholarship program. Though other parts of the university are in need of significant changes, UNC’s commitment to curricular reform, as signified by this new and growing school, is a decisive contributor to its strong performance in our ranking.

UNC is a reasonable investment in terms of postgraduate outcomes, with a caveat. Its six-year graduation rate, as well as its retention rate, overperforms expectations, based on data from SAT scores and Pell Grant recipients. On average, it takes only 1.4 years to pay back the cost of the education, well below our overall 2.3-year average. Furthermore, The Princeton Review ranks its alumni network among the top 20 nationwide for public schools. However, graduates sometimes struggle early in their careers: median annual earnings ten years after initial enrollment underperform expectations by nearly $9,000.