ARCHITECTURE + DESIGN

The 50 Most Beautiful Colleges in America

Did your alma mater make the list?

by STEFANIE WALDEK
Posted November 5, 2018

With their vast collections of buildings, it’s no wonder that college campuses are architectural gems. In the United States, in particular, college campuses built during the late 19th and early 20th centuries featured beautiful unified styles—oftentimes of the Collegiate Gothic movement, which drew from historic English buildings, but also the Federal, neoclassical, and even Romanesque movements. Campuses also had elegant landscape design, whether well-manicured quads or more natural woodland. While most universities have gone on to include incredible modern builds by 20th-century starchitects (Eero Saarinen’s Ingalls Rink at Yale, anyone?), they’ve also worked hard to maintain their visual legacies. We’ve gone across the country to find the most beautiful college campuses in the United States, taking into consideration both architectural legacy and setting. Read on to find out if your alma mater made our list.

[The article has all 50 colleges, completed with blurb and picture, in reverse order from 50th to first.  We’re skipping to the chase.]

1. Yale University: New Haven, Connecticut

Photo: Getty Images

Yale has one of the most impressive collections of architecture in the country. Though the majority of the campus is done in the Collegiate Gothic style, there are some modernist gems, including Eero Saarinen’s Ingalls Rink; Skidmore, Owings and Merrell’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library; Paul Rudolph’s Art & Architecture Building; and Louis Kahn’s Yale Art Gallery and Center for British Art.