For over 140 years, the Providence-based RISD (pronounced RIZ-dee) has been offering students a studio-based education in architecture, design, fine arts and the liberal arts.
All first-year students complete a foundational year of time-intensive studio classes that include group critiques and challenging out-of-classroom work. The school’s student body is about two-thirds female and ethnically diverse, with more than a third of undergraduates coming from outside the U.S.
Attending isn’t cheap: RISD has one of the highest estimated net prices of a degree of all the colleges Money rated in 2024-2025. But the graduation rate is an impressive 90%, and grads tend to fare better in the labor market than their peers from other arts-focused schools, with median early-career salaries of about $65,000.
Notable alumni include Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane, filmmaker Gus Van Sant and Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky. In addition to receiving an excellent art education on campus, RISD upperclassmen can enroll in classes at neighboring Brown University for free, as long as the courses are applicable toward their RISD graduation requirements. The RISD Museum houses more than 100,000 objects, including pieces by Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol and Georgia O’Keeffe.
