Liberal Arts Schools Site Evaluation

There are a total of 2,335 liberal arts schools in the US. While all of these schools have websites, 2,098 liberal arts 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 95% are on Facebook.

Visual Preferences

Color

Approximately 66.8% of the 2,335 liberal arts schools use white as the primary color on their websites. Another 10.7% use grey as the primary color on their websites. Blue (6.3%), yellow (5.5%) and black (5.1%) are other colors commonly used as the primary color on liberal arts school websites.

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

1. University of Phoenix - Online Campus: grey 49%
2. Arizona State University: grey 34% and white 4.5%
3. Miami Dade College: white 10% and blue 2.9%

Font

The largest number, nearly 41.4%, of liberal arts school websites use Arial as the primary font on their websites. Other fonts commonly used on liberal arts school websites include Verdana (25.1%) and Helvetica (6.7%).

The largest liberal arts school's websites use the following fonts:

1. University of Phoenix - Online Campus: Arial
2. Arizona State University: Arial
3. Miami Dade College: Arial

Social Presence

Exactly 1,429 liberal arts schools have YouTube channels. These schools each have an average of 251 YouTube channel subscribers. The liberal arts 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 1,675 liberal arts schools have Twitter accounts. These schools each have an average of 1,316 Twitter account followers. The liberal arts schools with the greatest number of Twitter followers are:

1. Harvard University: 69,704 followers
2. Indiana University - Bloomington: 27,945 followers
3. University of Phoenix - Online Campus: 26,204 followers

Web Metrics

Although all liberal arts schools have websites, only about 22% of these schools actually appear to regularly maintain their sites. This can be deduced from the fact that 78.1% of liberal arts school websites have 3 or more broken links one click away from their homepage. The liberal arts schools with the most number of broken links are:

1. Central Arizona College: 93,584 broken links
2. Minnesota West Community and Technical College: 26,086 broken links
3. College of Saint Mary: 23,650 broken links

It is also interesting to evaluate the number of HTML and CSS validation errors on liberal arts school websites to get a sense of the quality of these sites. The liberal arts 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. Arizona Christian University: 0 HTML validation errors; 0 CSS validation errors
3. Cossatot Community College of the University of Arkansas: 0 HTML validation errors; 0 CSS validation errors

The liberal arts 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. Bergen Community College: 178 HTML validation errors; 869 CSS validation errors
3. Gainesville State College: 73 HTML validation errors; 893 CSS validation errors