A new set of 2026 rankings from Niche lists the top 25 of the most liberal and most conservative schools in the state, based on student surveys. St. Petersburg’s Eckerd College was ranked the most liberal, while the Pensacola Christian College topped the list of the most conservative, only seven spots ahead of Pensacola State College.
- Background: Niche’s rankings are based on self-reported student surveys of political leanings. For both lists, 80 percent of the weight comes from students reporting their personal political preferences, and 20 percent comes from students reporting the leanings of their campus community.
UWF
And where is the University of West Florida? It didn’t make the top 10 of either list. Among Florida’s public universities, UWF was near the bottom of the most liberal list.
1. University of Florida
2. University of South Florida
3. Florida International University
4. Florida Atlantic University
5. Florida State University
6. University of West Florida
7. University of Central Florida
8. Florida A&M University
The only public universities on the most conservative list were the University of North Florida and Florida Gulf Coast University. New College of Florida and Florida Polytechic University didn’t make either list.
Performance Rankings
The Florida Board of Governors has a performance metrics system for the state’s public universities:
1. Florida International University: 96
2. University of Florida: 94
3. – tie: University of West Florida, Florida State University: 91
4. University of South Florida: 89
The top three public universities on the most liberal list did very well when measured by the state’s objective performance metrics, and so did UWF.
Note: The Niche rankings and the performance metrics scores were before Manny Diaz was hired as the interim president of UWF, Rebecca Matthews become chair of the UWF Board of Trustees and Trustee Adam Kissel took over the Academic Affairs Committee.