When it comes down to it, a small higher-education school provides students with the best educational and student experience.

A college or university that limits the number of students to a class to somewhere below 25-30 allows for a more interactive personal environment that enhances experience. Students can interact to know professors better, and they are typically available more often to help. Students are not a number in a giant classroom. Each is an individual who come to learn and can tailor their educational experience to as needs require.

At a larger university, it’s easy to get lost in a crowd and not get too involved outside academic obligations. Blending in is doable, but smaller schools can provide more of an opportunity to stand out and thrive.

For example, there are dozens of opportunities to get involved in extracurricular activities. Some are intertwined within majors, and familiar faces can appear in club participation and classes.

Athletics at smaller schools tend to focus on the love of the sport instead of intense competition. Many of these athletes may not have had an opportunity to play at a bigger school because of their size or talent. At a smaller school, they still have a chance to compete in the sport they love while pursuing their degree.

Student-athletes at smaller schools typically place much more emphasis on their studies because that’s the culture which has been engrained at those schools and is driven by coaches. They are expected to put the same amount of time into their studies as their sport, and that time-management may not be something expected at a higher level.

Bigger schools tend to have more of an emphasis on sports itself, with many of the athletes attempting to get signed by a professional team.

Students get to know more of the faculty and fellow students at a smaller college or university. Anyone can walk around campus and say hello to almost everyone because they likely know many of the people, or at least had a class with them or know them from a sport. Smaller schools have a more overall friendly feel, whereas larger universities tend to have smaller groups of people who don’t interact as often because there are just so many of them.

There’s also something to be said about being within walking distance of everything you need to get to. At many smaller campuses, dorms and classrooms are within a few hundred feet of each other. Sometimes there’s unexplorable small town near the campus within walking distance and there are eating establishments just a few minutes away.

Smaller campuses allow students to get the most out of their college experience. Larger colleges and universities provide different experiences, but there is much more variety and opportunity to thrive in a small school kind of environment.