Language Schools Site Evaluation

There are a total of 1,214 language schools in the US. While all of these schools have websites, 1,153 language schools have some social media presence, having accounts on at least one of the three major social media outlets, Facebook, Twitter or YouTube. Of the schools that have a social media presence, the greatest number, almost 96% are on Facebook.

Visual Preferences

Color

Approximately 65.1% of the 1,214 language schools use white as the primary color on their websites. Another 11.4% use grey as the primary color on their websites. Blue (6.7%), yellow (5.4%) and black (5.3%) are other colors commonly used as the primary color on language school websites.

The colors used on the websites of the largest language schools in the nation, are as follows:

1. Arizona State University: grey 34% and white 4.5%
2. Ohio State University - Main Campus: white 30% and grey 3.4%
3. Houston Community College: white 36% and grey 4.3%

Font

The largest number, nearly 41.6%, of language school websites use Arial as the primary font on their websites. Other fonts commonly used on language school websites include Verdana (23.1%) and Helvetica (8.6%).

The largest language school's websites use the following fonts:

1. Arizona State University: Arial
2. Ohio State University - Main Campus: Helvetica
3. Houston Community College: Arial

Social Presence

Exactly 879 language schools have YouTube channels. These schools each have an average of 376 YouTube channel subscribers. The language schools with the greatest number of YouTube channel subscribers are:

1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology: 113,180 subscribers
2. Harvard University: 28,331 subscribers
3. Yale University: 20,055 subscribers

Exactly 1,022 language schools have Twitter accounts. These schools each have an average of 1,874 Twitter account followers. The language schools with the greatest number of Twitter followers are:

1. Harvard University: 69,704 followers
2. Indiana University - Bloomington: 27,945 followers
3. Arizona State University: 24,295 followers

Web Metrics

Although all language schools have websites, only about 20% of these schools actually appear to regularly maintain their sites. This can be deduced from the fact that 80.1% of language school websites have 3 or more broken links one click away from their homepage. The language schools with the most number of broken links are:

1. Tarrant County College District: 14,140 broken links
2. Creighton University: 7,788 broken links
3. Northwest Missouri State University: 6,291 broken links

It is also interesting to evaluate the number of HTML and CSS validation errors on language school websites to get a sense of the quality of these sites. The language school websites with the cleanest websites, i.e., least number of HTML and CSS validation errors are:

1. Pima Community College: 0 HTML validation errors; 0 CSS validation errors
2. California Lutheran University: 0 HTML validation errors; 0 CSS validation errors
3. California Polytechnic State University - San Luis Obispo: 0 HTML validation errors; 0 CSS validation errors

The language school websites with the greatest number of HTML and CSS validation errors include:

1. University of Wisconsin - Stevens Point: 0 HTML validation errors; 1,213 CSS validation errors
2. Irvine Valley College: 0 HTML validation errors; 854 CSS validation errors
3. University of Colorado Denver: 0 HTML validation errors; 794 CSS validation errors