Colorado College

Colorado College says its goal is to “provide the finest liberal arts education in the country.” To accomplish that ambitious mission, the college follows an unusual academic schedule that it calls the “Block Plan.” Each semester, students take four courses – but not simultaneously. Instead, they take them one at a time in intensive “blocks" that last three and a half weeks. By the time they graduate, students will have completed 32 blocks. CC has just over 2,000 undergrads and a handful of grad students. About three-fourths of students live on campus (they’re required to for the first three years), and roughly 160 belong to fraternities or sororities. The CC campus is just north of downtown Colorado Springs, a city near the base of Pikes Peak in the Rocky Mountains – “nestled at the intersection of nature's call and urban sprawl,” as the college itself puts it. Colorado College scores particularly high on Money’s “quality” measures, which look at graduation rates, the student-faculty ratio and the percentage of admitted students who choose to enroll, among other things.