Fast Facts About Kalamazoo College

Mission: to prepare graduates to better understand, live successfully within, and provide enlightened leadership to a richly diverse and increasingly complex world

Founded in 1833, among the 100 oldest institutions in the country

Located in Kalamazoo, Michigan, a mid-sized city just 35 miles from Lake Michigan and approximately 140 miles from both Detroit and Chicago

Nationally known for the K-Plan:

Strong focus on Experiential Education:

  • More than 80 percent of students complete an internship or externship
  • More than 85 percent of students participate in a meaningful, immersive international and intercultural experience—often characterized by home stays, an Integrative Cultural Research Project, and duration of three to nine months—at 34 sites in 25 countries on six continents
  • More than 60 percent of students participate in course-based or co-curricular service-learning projects
  • All students engage in a Senior Individualized Project, an in-depth research or creative project done in the senior year

Outstanding performance on the nationwide Collegiate Learning Assessment, the best current measure of student outcomes in critical thinking, analytical reasoning, and writing

Ranked among the top 20 among all institutions for graduates earning PhDs in chemistry (6th), the life sciences (7th), foreign languages (11th), the physical sciences (13th), and economics (13th)

One of the Colleges That Change Lives, book by Loren Pope, higher education expert and former New York Times education editor, describing a group of 40 dynamic colleges that excel at developing potential, values, and initiative and provide the foundation for success beyond college

Ranked 52 in Forbes Magazine’s second annual list of American’s Best Colleges. Forbes’ rankings are developed by the Center for College Affordability and Productivity and are considered the best of college rankings by MoneyWatch.com.

Named one of the 44 “Best Buy” schools by Fiske Guide to Colleges 2010.

1,384 students from 40 states and 25 countries; 18 percent students of color

Class of 2013 mean ACT-27.8 / mean SAT critical reading-631.9 /mean SAT math-629.8

More than 90 percent of students receive need-based and/or merit-based financial aid; 13 percent are Pell eligible

13-to-1 student-to-faculty ratio

86 percent of faculty holds PhD or terminal degree

Annual tuition, room, and board: $40,419

Endowment as of 6/30/09: $122,589,205

Endowment per student: $87,564

Member of MIAA, the oldest collegiate athletics conference in the country

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