The Best Gay-Friendly Schools

Columbia University has sealed its position as a “best value” school, thanks to strong value rankings in US News, Kiplinger, Princeton Review and Forbes, which have cast the school as offering high-quality academics at a reasonable price.  

Located in New York City’s Upper West Side, Columbia University was established by royal charter in 1754 as King’s College and remains one of the premier schools in the United States. Newsweek plants it at No. 6 on the Most Desirable Schools list as well as the fourth most desirable urban school.  Twelfth on Newsweek’s schools for brainiacs, The Ivy League school is highly selective, with only 11 percent of applicants admitted as students. The fewer than 8,000 undergrads that enroll enjoy a student-to-faculty ratio of 6:1.  

All that individual attention seems to pay off—third on the list for future powerbrokers, Columbia produces alums who frequently find themselves in illustrious positions. With a gay-friendly culture (No. 12 on the list) and non-whites representing more than one-third of its students, Columbia is the 17th most diverse school in Newsweek’s rankings.   

Though the school’s tuition and fees for the 2009–2010 academic year totaled more than $41,000, more than half of Columbia’s student population receives financial aid, many of them institutional grants. The school’s endowment neared $6 billion in 2009.