Nine Worst Colleges in America
Wednesday November 01st 2006, 4:20 pm
Filed under: College, Blogging, College rankings

Yes, it’s another college ranking list, but this snarky / cheeky one really stands out. Radar Magazine Online recently put together a “semi-scientific guide to the most substandard schools in America.” Using a wide variety of sources, Radar took up the challenge of choosing which accredited 4-year colleges with physical campuses made the “dishonor roll.”

Worst Party School: (Tie) California State University-Chico; San Diego State University
Illustrious Alumni: Chico lays claim to good-time-guy novelist Raymond Carver (who graduated elsewhere) and bare-knuckled political consultant Ed Rollins, while SDSU graduated disgraced former CIA executive director Kyle “Dusty” Foggo and oft-disrobed former C-movie actress Raquel Welch.

Worst Trust-Fund-Baby College: Bennington College (VT)
Notable Course: “SHHH! The Social Construction of Silence,” a class focused on breaking down the classification of silence as an absence of sound and “establishing it as a presence.” Or, the class where you sleep off your hangover.

Worst Ivy League University: Cornell University (NY)
School Pride: “I haven’t overheard a single intellectual conversation in three years, unless it was between Indian or Asian students,” writes an architecture major on Students Review.

Worst Christian University: Liberty University (VA)
School Pride: “The mountains and all are beautiful. It’s right near the Wal-Mart too,” writes a student on Campus Dirt.

Worst of the Big Ten: Michigan State University (East Lansing)
It’s not surprising this hard-drinking football school hasn’t made it to the Rose Bowl since 1988: Much of its student body seems to be in jail. Over 1,000 students were arrested for drug and alcohol offenses last year, along with another 1,224 perps in the crime-ridden city.

Worst Military Academy: Virginia Military Institute
VMI excluded women from its ranks until the U.S. Supreme Court forced the academy to admit female cadets in 1996.

Worst Women’s College: Texas Woman’s University
Notable Course: Cultural Perspectives of Personal Appearance.

The Worst College in America: University of Bridgeport (CT)
Fun Fact: At orientation, all incoming students are given a “personal alarm locator” that will send swarms of campus policemen racing to their rescue whenever they press a panic button.

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19 Comments so far
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Obviously you haven’t done your homework about Bennington! My daughter (who is NOT by any means a trust-fund baby) took this psychology class about silence - silence as communication, in relationships. She learned an enormous amount. Because part of your evaluation is your class participation (it is in all of their classes), this is certainly not a class you can sleep in!

I have taken two classes at Bennington myself. Yes, the titles can be “interesting”, but the courses are amazing. I took one class called “The Secrets of the Ancient Astronomers” which was a trigonometry/astronomy/ancient history course where we studied the history of trigonometry. I majored in math in college, and in four years, never had the understanding of trig that I got from this class.

My classes had 8-12 students. We had up to 200 pages of reading and 5-12 pages of writing each week. Every class included long class discussions that made you THINK - not just repeat information. They were not easy courses!

Comment by LS 03.26.07 @ 6:46 am

Here’s a joke about a women’s liberal arts college in WI but you could put in a variety of schools to make it work: What’s the difference between 6 years at Alverno College and 6 years at a diploma mill?…

The diploma!

Comment by Kurt Hildebrand 03.27.07 @ 3:08 am

Beware of schools that do not require attendance in order to get a degree!

Some online, for-profit schools (Strayer University, Regis University, others) will let you gt a degree without ever attending a traditional class.

You do all your work online, and exams are open-book and unproctored.

This situation is loaded with abuse; however, the regional accrediting association (MSCHE) doesn’t even raise an eyebrow.

Olga Mae

Comment by Olga Mae 06.17.07 @ 8:53 am

Strayer offers exam guard program. I doubt if you are the cheater that doing cheat. There are regular class meetings. Students have options to join regular class or online class. Moreover, the theory you learn will never as simple as to look your book.
There are comprehensive writing finals, term papers, final projects which require using specific skills and programs, and so on…

I say beware your comment here. Watch out your spelling “unproctored”? Maybe you feel bad to be one of these schools… since you cannot even check your spelling?

Comment by reversemind 06.20.07 @ 9:44 pm

Michigan State University is one of the largest schools in the nation (ranked 7th in 2006)…undergrad & graduate combined comes close to 50,000 students. 1,000 students were arrested last year (so you say)…I believe that can be reduced to 1 in 50…which leads us to 2%. Not a staggering number. The football team just sucks either way. Your logic is flawed.

Comment by Ben 07.19.07 @ 1:20 am

I urge Appalachian Americans not to fall victim to the scam sweeping Eastern KY and parts of Ohio. Each year the marketing powers that be lure students into PAYING to work at Alice Lloyd College. No that is not a typo, students pay to work at Alice Lloyd. It’s a requirement. They also require students to live in the dorm, so they can get more money out of them. They hire people with Ph.D.’s and only offer them 25,000 for a year’s salary. I know! I was one of the professors. Needless the say, it’s either the inexperienced (as I was at the time) or the bottom of the barrel instructing the classes. The library at the college is outdated even by 1960’s standards. The staff running the various offices are underpaid and bitter. They take it out on the students. I have heard many students complain about mysterious fees appearing on their students accounts. When they question these fees, they are given the ol’ “shut up and pay up” routine.

Comment by Former ALC Professor 08.09.07 @ 11:43 am

In my youth I heard someone remark “I don’t go to college, i go to Kent (State).” So guess where I went off to? Other than that i think you’re opinions are bull shit.

Comment by Ed "Big Ed" Estrada 08.17.07 @ 7:49 am

YOU HAVEN´T EXPERIENCED A BAD UNIVERSITY UNTIL YOU HAVE BEEN A WIDENER UNIVERSITY STUDENT. WHAT A HORRIBLE SCHOOL IN A HORRIBLE NEIGHBORHOOD. THE PROFESSORS ARE THE WORST I HAVE EVER EXPERIENCED TOO. AND DO NOT GO NEAR THEIR SPECIAL EDUCATION OR LANGUAGE DEPARTMENTS IF YOU WANT TO LEARN.

Comment by EILEEN VICENTE 08.25.07 @ 4:07 am

“Strayer offers exam guard program. I doubt if you are the cheater that doing cheat. There are regular class meetings. Students have options to join regular class or online class. Moreover, the theory you learn will never as simple as to look your book.
There are comprehensive writing finals, term papers, final projects which require using specific skills and programs, and so on…

I say beware your comment here. Watch out your spelling “unproctored”? Maybe you feel bad to be one of these schools… since you cannot even check your spelling? ”

Dear GOD your grammar is atrocious!! I take it you attend one of the before mentioned school, by the way before criticizing someone about their spelling, why don’t you run grammar checker once or twice for your own good. Then go and sign up to get you some real “edu-mi-cation”!

Thanks to you “reversemind” after reading your comment I am proud to say “my college” has at least taught me something.

Comment by Education Job 1 09.10.07 @ 6:49 am

Well I go to a school here in Sacramento California called American River College. Its lower than worst. Everyone listens to the same music, students constantly talk on their cell phones, instructors and their classes are really boring, and there is never anything interesting going on either.

Comment by Vincent 09.14.07 @ 10:11 pm

Oh, could I tell you stories about Widener University. Besides slandering my good name, and almost throwing me out of the school for something I absolutely never said, I have a list of ways the rarely available adminstraters and many of the teachers cheat students. First of all, the campus is extremely violent. There are shootings on the campus, and even their security used to go into girls dorms without permisssion when I in attendance. The school even covers up campus crime such as rape. I was an adult student there, so you are not just getting the opinion of a kid. I was discriminated against because I am Jewish. In addition, I hardly learned anything. Further more, many young students, especially the foreigners, used to cry to me about how they were cheated and lied to by the university. Many of them wanted to quit, but they had already spent too much money to forget about finishing a program. Oh, by the way, don´t even think about majoring in Special Education there because you will learn less than nothing. The head of the department, Dr. Lynn, needs to grow up and re-educate herself before there is any hope for that program. It is useless. I could go on and on about Widener because it is such a lousy over priced school. If you don´t believe me, sit in the library in the back for a few days, and as some of the students how they feel about the place.

Comment by Eileen Vicente 02.24.08 @ 12:59 pm

This list do not include the ABSOLUTELY WORST college ever, Latter Day Saint Business College, a school that has little business classes, almost all classes are attendance based and their required classes are more like being at high school. The security here act like they are gods personal police and the administrators couldn’t care less what is taught here. I have a required class in which I am disrespected and learn to disrespect others through communication that the school brain washes me as normal. I hate this school. If you think for yourself on any issue here, you are an outcast.

Comment by James Bosnwell 03.11.08 @ 10:24 am

Alice Lloyd College by no means offers guaranteed tuition. This college includes government funding in their tuition guarantee. They cater to poor students so that they can do this. Students at this socioeconomic status would have received free tuition from the government at a state university. Alice Lloyd College makes sure that students do not receive any residual money from state and federal grants as they fluctuate the students’ tuition costs so that all the funding can go to the college.
Students are required to work on campus and then sign their federal work study checks over to the college. These same students would have been able to use this money at a state college for living expenses.
There have been several instances of strange fees being charged to students’ accounts at the end of a semester with no reason given as to why this occured.
Students are rewarded private scholarships that they never see even after their bill has supposedly been paid. These students’ pictures are taken and they are given certificates and the scholarship money is never seen by the student.
Alice Lloyd College divides what really is tuition into tuition and then fees. They claim to guarantee the tuition and then charge $500 in fees. No other college in the state of Kentucky does this. However, at any state university, up front fees are counted as tuition. It doesn’t matter what it is called if this student must pay it to attend. This is not a tuition free school.

Comment by Concerned Citizen 03.23.08 @ 8:52 am

I would say Widener University is one of the worst. From slandering students names to a staff in the Education Department that is immature and non-caring, I would say Widener wins. It is an over priced joint, and worst of all, it is in an extremely dangerous setting. Good luck if you are desparate enough to waste your money on this poor excuse for a university. When I was a student there, the head of the Special Education Department was stupid enough to make fun of my project about bullying. She said it was not a very important idea to waste time in creating an anti-bullying program nationally for all schools. She even annouced that my idea was a waste of time to an entire class. One year later the massive shootings in Columbine High School occurred. Now I ask you, is “Dr. Margaret Lin” a professor you would want to study with. A better bet would be Neuman, a neighbor of Widener. My husband graduated from that fine university. He got a fabulous education!

Comment by EILEEN VICENTE 03.29.08 @ 11:15 am

Cornell? Worst Ivy League University? How can you claim that one of the top 9 Universities in America is one of the nine worst?

Comment by RCH 04.06.08 @ 9:15 pm

Without question, University of Tennessee Knoxville is the worst university among all the thousands of universities in the nationwide education system. This is of course if you like to attend a school where a football is above and beyond more important than a book or syllabus.

Comment by Bob 04.30.08 @ 7:23 am

I’m a student at Liberty University and I am very saddened to see that it has somehow sunk to the ranking of the worst Christian college. Admissions criteria is becoming stronger, the amount of applications is increasing exponentially and the shift in leadership from Jerry to Jerry Jr. has only brought positive changes. The University is still young (founded in 1971) and has made great improvements and will continue to do so. I’m a National Merit Scholar in the Honors Program at Liberty and I find myself academically challenged as well as spiritually encouraged. Liberty University is on its way to becoming the premier Christian university.

Comment by Kate E 05.13.08 @ 8:20 am

Hey guys, I graduate from Stayner and I am now studying Economics at Harvard. Take that !!!

Comment by spicy 05.26.08 @ 8:57 pm

Cornell is NOT the worst Ivy, it is under rated. it is an all around great school which doesn’t get the respect it deserves.

Comment by super student 07.15.08 @ 6:31 pm



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