The 25 Most Diverse Schools

The University of Chicago in Chicago, Illinois, finds itself on five of NEWSWEEK's "best of" lists: At No. 12, the private institution is one of the nation's 25 most desirable urban colleges; ten Rhodes scholars and four Nobel Prize winners put it in the top 10 (No. 8) of colleges for the super-smart. The university comes in at the No. 13 spot on the list of most diverse colleges and No. 25 for gay friendliness; and finally, with seven senators and ten billionaires among its alumni, the school is tenth on the list of colleges best for future power brokers.

The university has just over 5,000 undergraduates--99 percent are age 24 or younger. The student body is evenly split between men and women, and 45 percent of those students are Caucasian, 14 percent Asian or Pacific Islander, 9 percent Hispanic, and 6 percent African-American. The school, which sees 92 percent of its students graduate, retains 98 percent of its first-year students.

Tuition for the 2009-2010 school year was $40,188. About 71 percent of students at the University of Chicago receive some form of financial aid.

To rank colleges and universities by diversity, we took a broad view of related issues, including ethnicity, geographic origin, economic status, gender, and sexual orientation. Read more about our methodology here.