Pillars of Academia: The colleges that produce the most altruistic students, by state

Pillrs aims to empower socially minded people to make a huge impact, right from their couch. So naturally, one day after a few too many hours of bug fixing and development, someone asked an interesting question:

Which college creates the most altruistic students?

Having no idea – most of us went to colleges that are “the best in the world (as long as you don’t count anyone better)” – we turned to the Washington Monthly university rankings, which ranks schools on social mobility, research, and service. It was there that we found the answer.

So without ado, here’s the map of the top school in each state for altruistic / community service-minded students.

Most Socially Minded Schools, Tabulated Data

Here’s the full rankings. Order lists the school’s ranking on our list of the top school for each state, accounting only for top schools.

Also listed is the Rank Among all Universities Considered, which accounts for every university on Washington Monthly’s data. For example, two Schools in California are ranked above Tulane University (Order #4, Rank #5) – we only list the top school for the state, UC Riverside in this example, bumping Tulane’s Rank down one and mismatching its order.

Order	School	State	Rank among all universities considered
1	Texas A&M University–College Station	TX	1
2	American University	DC	2
3	University of California–Riverside	CA	3
4	Tulane University of Louisiana	LA	5
5	SUNY Coll. of Envir. Science & Forestry	NY	6
6	VA Polytechnic Inst. & State Univ.	VA	7
7	Indiana State University	IN	8
8	Washington University in St Louis	MO	11
9	Case Western Reserve University	OH	14
10	University of the Cumberlands	KY	15
11	Marquette University	WI	17
12	Vanderbilt University	TN	18
13	Colorado State Univ.–Fort Collins	CO	20
14	Auburn University	AL	22
15	Loyola University–Chicago	IL	23
16	Widener University–Main	PA	24
17	University of Nevada–Las Vegas	NV	26
18	University of NC–Chapel Hill	NC	27
19	University of Idaho	ID	29
20	Clark University	MA	32
21	University of Connecticut	CT	40
22	University of Michigan–Ann Arbor	MI	41
23	University of Washington–Seattle	WA	42
24	Drew University	NJ	43
25	Florida International University	FL	45
26	University of Minnesota–Twin Cities	MN	46
27	University of Nebraska–Lincoln	NE	48
28	Univ. of South Carolina–Columbia	SC	51
29	University of MD–College Park	MD	53
30	Emory University	GA	55
31	University of Kansas	KS	56
32	Mississippi State University	MS	57
33	Arizona State University	AZ	68
34	University of Delaware	DE	75
35	University of Vermont	VT	79
36	Dartmouth College	NH	86
37	University of Montana	MT	91
38	Portland State University	OR	94
39	West Virginia University	WV	112
40	University of South Dakota	SD	127
41	Utah State University	UT	128
42	University of Rhode Island	RI	146
43	University of Arkansas at Little Rock	AR	154
44	University of Tulsa	OK	156
45	University of Wyoming	WY	203
46	University of New Mexico–Main	NM	214
47	University of Hawaii–Manoa	HI	225
48	University of North Dakota	ND	235
49	Iowa State University	IA	236
50	University of Maine	ME	254

About the rankings

All of our data was gathered from the Washington Monthly college rankings. Their full selection criteria is published here.

For simplicity, we’ve included the relevant information about their community service score, which was used to generate this graph (emphasis added and styled for readability):

We determined the community service score by measuring each college’s performance in four equally weighted measures.

1. We judged military service by collecting data on the size of each college’s Air Force, Army, and Navy ROTC programs and dividing by the number of students.

2. We similarly measured national service by dividing the number of alumni currently serving in the Peace Corps by total enrollment.

3. The final two measures are based on data reported to the Corporation for National and Community Service by colleges and universities in their applications for the President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll. One measure is the percentage of federal work-study grant money spent on community service projects.

4. The second measure is more complicated and includes the percent of students doing community service, the number of hours of community service per student, whether any staff were employed in community service, if any service courses were offered, or if the institution provides scholarships for community service.

Colleges that did not submit applications in a given year had no data and were given zeros on these measures.