18 Best Colleges For Jewish Life
Jewish students at the University of Michigan. Image by University of Michigan Hillel
What do you need for Jewish life to thrive on campus?
Start with having lots of Jewish students — the fact that you need a minyan of ten people to properly pray shows how much Judaism values coming together. Add thriving Hillel and Chabad chapters to provide a wide variety of popular religious and cultural programs — or just a place to hang out. There should be lots of options for Jewish fraternities, sororities and extracurricular clubs. The community should have lots of synagogue options, both for places to pray and to pick up Sunday school jobs. And of course, what kind of Jewish community could exist without kosher food?
In other words: When it comes to thriving Jewish life, we think you need all of the above.
The Forward College Guide weighed all of these factors and more to determine the Jewish Life score for our university rankings.
There are many, many schools that provide a positive Jewish experience for students. But here are the 18 schools that scored the best:
1) University of Maryland, College Park — 34/34
2) New York University — 33/34
T-3) Brandeis University — 32/34
T-3) University of California, Los Angeles — 32/34
T-3) University of Pennsylvania — 32/34
6) Washington University in St. Louis — 30.17/34
T-7) Boston University — 29/34
T-7) Emory University — 29/34
9) Barnard College — 28.75/34
10) Northwestern University — 28.67/34
T-11) Cornell University — 28.50/34
T-11) Tufts University — 28.50/34
T-11) University of Michigan — 28.50/34
14) University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign — 28.42/34
15) Columbia University — 28.08/34
16) Rutgers University — 28/34
17) American University — 27.92/34
18) Yeshiva University — 27.50/34
NOTE: For our rankings of schools that have the best Israel atmosphere, click here.

Image by Kurt Hoffman
This article is part of the award-winning Forward College Guide — to read more fascinating stories and see the definitive rankings, click here.
Contact Aiden Pink at [email protected].
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Most Popular
- 1
Opinion The dangerous Nazi legend behind Trump’s ruthless grab for power
- 2
Opinion A Holocaust perpetrator was just celebrated on US soil. I think I know why no one objected.
- 3
Culture Did this Jewish literary titan have the right idea about Harry Potter and J.K. Rowling after all?
- 4
Opinion I first met Netanyahu in 1988. Here’s how he became the most destructive leader in Israel’s history.
In Case You Missed It
-
Opinion Gaza and Trump have left the Jewish community at war with itself — and me with a bad case of alienation
-
Fast Forward Trump administration restores student visas, but impact on pro-Palestinian protesters is unclear
-
Fast Forward Deborah Lipstadt says Trump’s campus antisemitism crackdown has ‘gone way too far’
-
Fast Forward 5 Jewish senators accuse Trump of using antisemitism as ‘guise’ to attack universities
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.