News

Cleveland Institute of Art has been ranked fifth among North America’s 44 elite colleges of art and design by Money magazine in its “Best Colleges for Your Money” ranking. The magazine evaluated more than 700 schools “that provide the best value for your tuition dollar,” and ranked them on 21 factors in three equally weighted categories: educational quality, affordability, and alumni earnings.

With an A-, CIA is ranked behind one West Coast and three East Coast art schools, making it Money magazine’s top ranked college of art and design in the Midwest.

“We are very pleased that Money magazine’s evaluation results confirm what we already knew, that CIA offers an excellent and affordable education and that our graduates go on to successful careers,” said CIA President Grafton Nunes.

CIA has produced a series of short videos in which alumni describe their creative careers and the benefits of a CIA education. Click here to access alumni video profiles.

According to the magazine’s website, “To gauge how well a college is performing relative to its peers, we gathered federal and college data on the average test scores and grade point averages of students at each college, the percentage of each graduating class receiving degrees in each major, and the percentage of students with incomes low enough to qualify for Pell Grants (about 90% of which go to families with incomes below $50,000).” Read about Money magazine’s methodology here.

One factor each college was measured on was the size of its career services staff relative to its student body. According to the Money website, “At the typical four-year college, there is only one professional career services staffer for every 1,000 undergraduates, which equates to an average availability of just one hour of personal attention per undergraduate per year.” By contrast, CIA has two Career Center staff members – plus a mandatory course in Business and Professional Practices – for its 560 students. Click here to watch a brief video about the CIA Career Center.

CIA is one of 44 members of the Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design (AICAD), a nonprofit consortium of the leading North American art schools. Only four AICAD colleges are ranked ahead of CIA: The Cooper Union in New York City (a heavily subsidized college which, until last year was tuition free), Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston, Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles, and Rhode Island School of Design in Providence.