Skip to main content
Add as a preferred source on Google

Small But Mighty Colleges Featured in 2020’s Hidden Gems Rankings

  • 09/16/19

IOWA CITY, IA – College Raptor announced its 2020 Hidden Gems Rankings, which spotlights great but lesser-known colleges as part of their overall mission of helping students and parents find “The Right College, The Best Price™.” Raptor has helped millions of families to discover college options that best fit a students’ academic, cultural, and financial profile.

Notable standouts for 2020 included Wheaton College, which has topped the Hidden Gems in the U.S. list in Illinois for the fifth consecutive year, and Samford University in Alabama, which is featured on four separate lists. Newcomers for 2020 included Muhlenburg College in Pennsylvania and Loyola University of New Orleans in Louisiana.

In addition to College Raptor’s overall Hidden Gems in the U.S. and best gems by region, the company curated new niche lists that highlight schools with popular degree programs and schools with the lowest student loan debt levels. New this year are rankings for “Hidden Gems for Teaching,” “Hidden Gems for Nursing,” “Hidden Gems with the Lowest Average Federal Student Loan Debt,” and “Hidden Gems in the City.”

It is impossible for families to be familiar with all of the 3,000 colleges that grant four-year degrees. That is why the Hidden Gems Rankings are so impactful in expanding a family’s scope of quality choices. Further, CollegeRaptor.com helps students calculate personalized match scores and costs at every school in the U.S. through advanced AI algorithms.

“We’ve created the best site for families to identify their best college options at a price they can afford. Sometimes this means helping families find colleges that they may not have known about but are great fits for the student,” says Bill Staib, College Raptor’s CEO. “Each student is unique and so is every school. We take pride in making it easy for students to make new connections to colleges through our Hidden Gems Rankings lists and college match tools.”

View the complete College Raptor 2020 Hidden Gems at www.collegeraptor.com/hidden-gems-2020/.

View 2020’s new lists:
Hidden Gems for Teaching
Hidden Gems for Nursing
Hidden Gems with the Lowest Average Federal Student Loan Debt
Hidden Gems in the City

College Raptor builds mobile-first products to help students, parents, counselors, and colleges resolve some of the most significant challenges in college planning. It is the only college search platform that enables students and families to discover quality, affordable college options based on personalized estimates of financial aid, scholarships, academic match, and acceptance chances at every four-year college in the country. As a result, students and their families find cost-effective, academically appropriate college options that prepare them for their career. For more information about College Raptor, visit www.CollegeRaptor.com.

Featured

  • University of Idaho Debuts New Campus Housing Community

    The University of Idaho in Moscow, Idaho, recently held a ribbon-cutting ceremony for Vandal Village, a new campus housing community for graduate students and families, according to a news release.

  • Houston-Area High School Receives Best Project Award from ENR

    Tomball West High School near Houston, Texas, recently received a K–12 Education Best Project Award in Engineering News-Record’s 2026 Texas & Southeast Best Projects Awards, according to a press release. The new facility was completed in May and opened its doors to students for the fall 2026 semester.

  • Opportunity by Design Framework

    Opportunity by Design

    Educational improvement efforts often focus on curriculum, instruction, assessment, professional development, and intervention systems while treating the physical school building as background. But school design is not a passive backdrop to learning — it is a structural lever for equity.