These Two Utah Schools Made “Best Regional School” List In 2024

Utah has several colleges and universities with a wide variety of specialties and campuses but only two made the list for “Best Regional Colleges”. 

Despite having famous colleges like Southern Utah University and Brigham Young University, Utah isn’t standing out like it should when it comes to academics. Though locals have no issue attending these schools, there is some debate on out-of-state desire. Yes, there will always be out of state students enrolling but most people say, from the East Coast, are not jumping at the chance to go to school in Utah.  

According to U.S. News and World Report, there are only two Utah colleges that even made the list of “Best Regional Colleges” in the West. Neither of them was SUU, BYU or USU. Kind of surprising given the in-state love of these schools.  

No, the two best colleges regionally in Utah are Snow College and Utah Tech University. Though neither made the top 10 or even 15, they did still place on the list.  

Snow College in Ephraim came in 19th place while UTU came in 32nd place overall. There are limited reviews of each college and about $2,000 difference in in-state tuition costs. Out-of-state tuition costs differed by about $3,000. 

However, Utah Tech University had double the number of graduates in 2022. This could be because of its aim to switch to a more prolific school in sports and academics over the last few years.  

Outside of those few differences, there isn’t much to go on as to why these two schools made it to the “Best Regional Schools” list.