University Information: June 2015

Sterling College

Sterling College is a private institution that was founded in 1958. It has a rural setting and the campus size is 430 acres. It utilizes a continuous-based academic calendar. Its tuition and fees are $29,894 (2013-14).

Sterling College is an environmentally focused, BA granting, private college that combines traditional academics with experiential learning. Courses provide opportunities for experiential learning both in and out of the classroom. We offer an integrated curriculum, a comprehensive internship program, independent studies and global field studies to places such as Japan, St. James Bay (Canada), Bahamas, Sierra Nevada, Iceland and Belize. Academic majors include Ecology, Sustainable Agriculture, Outdoor Education, and Environmental Humanities. About 1/3 of our students design their own majors using courses across the curriculum. Our campus consists of 16 buildings on 130 acres, an additional 300-acre boreal forest, and access to some of the best outdoor recreation in the northeast. Financial aid is available.

Shimer College

Shimer College is a private institution. Its tuition and fees are $31,527 (2013-14).

Shimer College is an American Great Books college in Chicago, Illinois. Founded as the Mt. Carroll Seminary in Mount Carroll, Illinois in 1853, the school became affiliated with the University of Chicago and was renamed the Frances Shimer Academy in 1896. It was renamed Shimer College in 1950, when it began offering a four-year curriculum based on the Hutchins Plan of the University of Chicago. Although the University of Chicago parted with Shimer (and the Hutchins' Plan) in 1958, Shimer has continued to utilize a version of that curriculum. The college left Mount Carroll for Waukegan in 1978, moving to Chicago in 2006.

Its academic program is based on a core curriculum of sixteen required courses in the humanities, social sciences and natural sciences. All courses are small seminars with no more than twelve students, and are based on original sources from a list of about 200 core texts broadly based on the Great Books canon. Classroom instruction is Socratic discussion. Considerable writing is required, including two comprehensive examinations and a senior thesis. Students are admitted primarily on the basis of essays and interviews; no minimum grades or test scores are required. Shimer has one of the highest alumni doctorate rates in the country.

The college occupies a complex designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe on the main campus of the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) in the Bronzeville neighborhood of Chicago's Near South Side. The American Institute of Architects has called the IIT campus one of the 200 most significant works of architecture in the United States, and it was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2005.

Shimer is governed internally by an assembly in which all community members have a vote.

According to The New York Times, students "share a love of books [and] a disdain for the conventional style of education. Many say they did not have a good high school experience". Students, who tend to be individualistic and creative thinkers, are encouraged to ask questions. Shimer has historically averaged 125 students, and enrolled 97 in 2014. Most Shimer alumni go on to graduate studies. Notable alumni include writers, political theorists, inventors, avant-garde artists and musicians, politicians and computing pioneers.

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National Hispanic University

National Hispanic University is a proprietary institution. Its tuition and fees are $8,196 (2013-14).

The university is accredited by WASC and is rated by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching as a "Baccalaureate College", with an academic breadth rated as "Diverse Fields

Martin University

Martin University is a private institution. Its tuition and fees are $11,960 (2013-14).

Martin University in Indianapolis, Indiana, was founded by Rev. Father Boniface Hardin and Sister Jane Schilling in 1977. The University's original mission to serve low-income, minority, and adult learners has not changed, although students from all backgrounds have always been welcome.

Martin University employs a learning method known as andragogy, as opposed to pedagogy, where it involves adult learners in the learning process, encouraging them to bring their life and work experiences into classroom discussions.

The original campus was at 35th Street and College Avenue. It moved to its current location on Avondale Place in the Martindale-Brightwood neighborhood in 1987. Housed initially in a former church and school, the campus grew to include many other structures in the immediate area. A $10 million Educational Center and adjoining Peace Garden opened in the summer of 2001. The brick-and-stone Educational Center contains nine classrooms; faculty and staff offices; an 800-seat Gathertorium; a two-story, glass-and-steel globe; a Frederick Douglass Room; student and staff lounges; and a smoking-cessation center.

Martin University offers 14 undergraduate degrees along with two master's degrees. It is the only predominantly African-American university in Indiana. It is excluded from designation as an Historically Black College or University (HBCU) because it was founded after the cut off date of 1964.

Popular undergraduate degree programs at the university include Accounting, Addiction Counseling, Business Administration, Biology, Chemistry, Early Childhood Education, Environmental Science, Psychology, Religious Studies, Sociology, Criminal Justice and Liberal Arts. Its two graduate degrees are in Urban Ministries and Community Psychology. The university also has special programs in Long-Term Care and Medical Coding. Tuition in 2012–13 was $14,180, although 59% of the student body receive financial aid in the average amount of $2,600.

Marlboro College

Marlboro College is a private institution. Its tuition and fees are $38,110 (2013-14).

Marlboro College is an intentionally small, coeducational, academically rigorous liberal-arts college located in Marlboro, Vermont, USA with 235 students. Students at Marlboro create an individualized course of study in collaboration with faculty members and participate in a self-governing community. Students pursue a self-designed, often inter-disciplinary, Plan of Concentration based on their academic interests that culminates in a major body of scholarship.