2025 College Rankings

Wellesley College, one of the historic Seven Sisters women’s colleges, has a long record of producing prominent progressive figures in American life. In recent years, however, it has embraced some of the more destructive trends in American higher education.

Wellesley maintains a relatively large Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) bureaucracy. The college employs more than three DEI staffers per 1,000 students, and about 20 percent of faculty job postings require a DEI statement. The entire operation is overseen by a Chief Diversity Officer, whose role is to ensure that the institution remains focused on group identity rather than individual merit.

Students generally lack confidence that the school upholds robust speech protections, though they express somewhat more faith that the administration would defend a speaker’s right to be heard in the event of controversy. Wellesley maintains a bias-response system, aimed at policing speech that some might find offensive. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) gives the college a “yellow” speech code rating, indicating that its policies could easily be used to suppress expression.

The faculty is not intellectually diverse. Students mark their professors at 2.5 on a 7-point ideological continuum, where 1 is “very liberal” and 7 is “very conservative.” Every faculty dollar donated in the 2023–24 election cycle went to liberal or Democratic causes. A minuscule number of faculty members belong to organizations that promote free inquiry, a sign that the ideological tilt makes itself apparent in the classroom. Students generally like their professors, though, and The Princeton Review ranks the school in its top 25 for the classroom experience.

These favorable attitudes may stem, in part, from the ideological uniformity of the student body. At Wellesley, there are more than seven liberal students for every conservative one. Students are not tolerant of opposing views: a majority say that they are far more willing to ban right-wing campus speakers than left-wing ones. That attitude has been put into practice. In 2021, left-wing students attempted to bar conservative pro-life activist Kristan Hawkins from speaking on campus and sought to de-charter the pro-life club that invited her. Both efforts failed, though the administration expressed sympathy for the protesters’ complaints.

Wellesley students are often uncomfortable speaking their minds. On our self-censorship index, the school ranks 98th out of 100. Students report feeling the need to edit their thoughts in conversations with both peers and professors. Many say that they are uneasy expressing themselves—not just in informal campus discussions but also in written assignments and on social media. More than half tell FIRE that they are offended by classmates’ words at least once a month.

Wellesley’s curriculum is mediocre overall. The American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) gives the college 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 Wellesley requires students to take DEI-focused courses to graduate, it lacks other foundational requirements. ACTA does highlight one area of distinction: the Freedom Project, which hosts a speaker series and campus programming to promote free expression in debates over democracy, inequality, and social justice.

Outcomes for Wellesley graduates are mixed. The Princeton Review ranks the school’s alumni network among the top 20 for private colleges nationwide. Yet graduates often fall short of expected earnings: the median annual income ten years after enrollment is about $6,500 below projections, based on SAT scores and Pell Grant data. On average, it takes 2.4 years to repay the cost of a Wellesley education, slightly longer than our benchmark of 2.3 years.