Shepherd University

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• Top 6 Colleges in West Virginia

  Currently #5 · score 0

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• West Virginia University

  West Virginia University, founded in 1867 as the state's land-grant institution, is West Virginia's flagship public research university, and its forensic and investigative sciences program is one of the most respected in the country, benefiting from close ties to the FBI's nearby Criminal Justice Information Services Division. The university's engineering and energy-related research programs reflect West Virginia's significant coal and natural gas economy, and WVU's continued research into mine safety and energy extraction technology serves a state economy still substantially tied to those industries. WVU's Mountaineers football program and its passionate fan base, including the tradition of students rolling downtown Morgantown streets in toilet paper after major victories, has given the university a distinctive athletic culture central to its broader public identity across the state. The university's combination of genuine forensic science research strength, its energy and mining-related engineering programs, and its role as the state's clear public flagship has made WVU central to both West Virginia's higher education system and its broader economic development.

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• Marshall University

  Marshall University, founded in 1837, is West Virginia's second-largest public university, and the school's 1970 football team plane crash, which killed 75 people including nearly the entire team, coaching staff, and numerous boosters, remains one of the most devastating tragedies in American college sports history. The university's subsequent rebuilding of its football program following that tragedy, dramatized in the 2006 film We Are Marshall, became a defining part of the university's institutional identity, and the program's recovery is still cited as one of the most significant comeback stories in college athletics. Marshall's forensic science and medical programs have built solid regional reputations, and the university's Huntington, West Virginia campus serves as a significant educational and healthcare hub for the state's southwestern region. The university's combination of its historically significant and painful football tragedy, its subsequent recovery, and its role as a major regional public university has made Marshall one of the most institutionally distinctive universities in West Virginia's higher education system.

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• Bethany College

  Bethany College, founded in 1840, is the oldest institution of higher education in West Virginia, established by Alexander Campbell, a founding figure of the Restoration Movement within American Protestant Christianity, and the college's small campus in Bethany reflects its founding-era religious origins. The college's small size, fewer than 700 undergraduates, and its rural Northern Panhandle setting give Bethany a close-knit community distinct from West Virginia's larger public universities, and the school's continued Disciples of Christ religious affiliation shapes aspects of its institutional mission. Bethany's business and education programs have built solid regional reputations, and the college's historic campus, including buildings dating to its 1840s founding, reflects its status as the state's oldest higher education institution. The college's genuine historical seniority as West Virginia's oldest college, combined with its small, religiously founded liberal arts identity, has made Bethany a distinctive if lesser-known choice among the state's private colleges.

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• West Virginia Wesleyan College

  West Virginia Wesleyan College, founded in 1890, is affiliated with the United Methodist Church and has built solid nursing and business programs, and its small size lets the college maintain closer faculty engagement than West Virginia's larger public flagship universities. The college's Division II athletic programs and its outdoor recreation offerings benefit from Wesleyan's location in Buckhannon, near significant West Virginia mountain and forest recreation areas, supporting the school's environmental and outdoor education-adjacent programs. Wesleyan's continued Methodist religious affiliation shapes aspects of campus life, even as the broader student body includes students from a range of religious backgrounds, reflecting a pattern common among historically denominational colleges that have grown more religiously diverse over time. The college's combination of its Methodist heritage, its solid nursing and business programs, and its small-town central West Virginia setting has made Wesleyan a distinctive private college choice within the state's higher education landscape.

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• Davis & Elkins College

  Davis & Elkins College, founded in 1904 and named for two US senators who helped establish the institution, is a small Presbyterian-affiliated liberal arts college whose Elkins, West Virginia campus sits in the heart of the state's Allegheny Mountains region. The college's equestrian studies and outdoor recreation programs benefit directly from the surrounding mountain terrain, and Davis & Elkins hosts the Augusta Heritage Center, a significant traditional Appalachian folk arts and music program drawing musicians and craftspeople from across the country each summer. The college's small size and its close-knit campus community reflect its position as a smaller private alternative to West Virginia's larger public universities, and its continued Presbyterian religious affiliation shapes aspects of its institutional mission. The college's combination of its scenic Allegheny Mountains setting, its distinctive Appalachian folk arts heritage program, and its small liberal arts college identity has made Davis & Elkins a distinctive choice within West Virginia's higher education landscape.

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