The 10 Best Colleges For Aspiring Writers

If you're planning a career as a struggling writer, it might be wise to pick a college with an awesome creative writing program.

There are many factors to take into account. So where should you look?

CollegeDegree.com has come up with the top 10 colleges for aspiring writers.

Which college is best for the future Flann O'Briens among us?

Check out the full list:

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• 10. Colorado College

  Colorado Springs, Colorado Photo Credit: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:EdithKinneyGaylordCornerstoneArtsBldg-TimothyHursley.jpg" target="_hplink">Timothy Hursley</a>

• 9. University of Michigan

  Ann Arbor, Michigan Photo Credit: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hill_Auditorium_2010.jpg" target="_hplink">AndrewHorne</a>

• 8. Columbia University

  New York, New York Photo Credit:<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Almamater.jpg" target="_hplink"> Nowhereman86</a>

• 7. University of Iowa

  Iowa City, Iowa Photo Credit: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cleary_Walkway_with_the_Old_Capitol_in_the_background,_University_of_Iowa.JPG" target="_hplink"> KMSatoh202</a>

• 6. Washington University in St. Louis

  St. Louis, Missouri Photo Credit: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Brookings.jpg" target="_hplink">Bachrach44</a>

• 5. New York University

  New York, New York Photo Credit: <a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:NYU_Campus.jpg" target="_hplink">Cincin12</a>

• 4. Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  Cambridge, Massachusetts Photo Credit: <a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:MIT_Main_Apr09.JPG" target="_hplink">Calvinkrishy</a>

• 3. Johns Hopkins University

  Baltimore, Maryland Photo Credit: <a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:George_Peabody_Library,_Peabody_Institute_-_view_2.jpg" target="_hplink">Daderot</a>

• 2. Hamilton College

  Clinton, New York Photo Credit: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hamilton_College_theater.jpg" target="_hplink">DanielPenfield</a>

• 1. Emory University

  Atlanta, Georgia Photo Credit: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Emory_Quad.jpg" target="_hplink">Yassie</a>

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Comments

[hello wild minds]

03:51 PM on 04/23/2013

who knows a good writing program thats online

[Sum it]

04:03 PM on 10/29/2012

Please use a better picture for Hamilton College. The campus is far too beautiful to be represented by the Minor Theater. :)

[joelparker]

03:39 PM on 07/11/2012

No University of Montana listed here? They had the top ranked writing program for public colleges for 2-3 decades.

[Richard Katrovas]

07:18 AM on 05/09/2012

I know Mr. Lemon and his colleagues mean well, or at least I assume this list was made in good faith, but I find it profoundly silly. Ranking undergraduate writing programs is rather like nationally ranking junior varsity lacrosse programs. Or course the Iowa Writers' Workshop, from which I graduated in '83, has a storied history among graduate programs, but how does it achieve such a high ranking for undergraduates? What, indeed, was the methodology here?

The University of Tennessee-Chatanogga, where Richard Jackson has done such a splendid job for so many years, is at least as successful as any of these listed institutions. My own Western Michigan University has, by any measure of such success, accomplished as much as most of these listed schools.

High school kids should not be encouraged to attend particular universities because of those institutions' creative-writing offerings. A young person should discover writing courses in the process of cobbling together an English-studies regimen. Any kid with a truly burning desire to be a writer out of high school should probably join the armed services, study pre-med., run away and join the circus, anything but choose a college or university for its creative-writing program.

I'm proud of my profession; I'm proud of the pedagogy of creative-writing as it has evolved over the course of my thirty years in the profession. However, I find this "top ten" list silly, offensive even for its brazenly cynical regard for the profession.

[SquatLikeALady]

10:10 PM on 05/05/2012

That's a great idea! Go to MIT, rack up a ton of debt in student loans, and go forth into the world as a writer.

THIS is why our country is about to face another crisis, this time due to student loan debt.

[irrenmann]

08:10 AM on 05/05/2012

Really surprised Susquehanna University isn't on there.

[Flamecoach]

08:32 PM on 05/03/2012

What about Ole Miss?

[SangZe]

04:49 PM on 05/02/2012

While all these schools are good, they will all tell you the same basic truth: if you want to learn how to write, write! The more you write, the better a writer you will become. I assume you are already well read and continuing to read intelligent, serious literature.

[Pointless Agony]

01:48 PM on 05/02/2012

As an English: Writing major at the University of Tennessee, I can attest that majoring in creative writing is a waste of time. My classes have taught me nothing that I can't learn by reading my favorite author's interviews, FREE writing blogs, and writing magazines from Barnes&Noble. When it comes to creative writing, you either have the talent or you don't. People can teach you how to develop a character, set up scenes and characters, but creative writers don't get paid for good writing, we get paid for good stories. And, unless you already have the talents of creating a good story then no classroom can help you succeed.

[Soule23]

01:39 PM on 05/02/2012

Why become a writer when you could become a faceless, meaningless, and consistently compensated cog in some well-oiled corporate machine?

[walkinthedogdude]

10:07 PM on 05/01/2012

College? Really? Calling Jack Kerouac.

[Juno786]

04:55 PM on 05/02/2012

he went to one of those. juss sayin'

[Goldie Treasure]

07:50 PM on 05/01/2012

At first I wanted to go to college to become a writer, but then I figured it was a waste of time. I either know how to write or I don't, so I am going to pick a major where I can get more steady work and continue to work on my writing alone and occasionally take writing classes.

[Sabster]

05:45 PM on 05/02/2012

my story too.

[Existentialist]

05:05 PM on 05/01/2012

The best college for a writer is a good library. Spend your freshman year reading Homer, Plato, Aristophanes, Petronius, Suetonius and Ovid; sophomore year read Dante, Boccaccio, Wolfram von Eschenbach, Chaucer and Shakespeare; junior year read Cervantes, Fielding, Sterne, Austen, Dickens, Flaubert, Tolstoy; senior year tackle William Faulkner, Toni Morrison, Dostoyevsky, Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, Marcel Proust. Then get your MFA in Claude Simon, W.G. Sebald, Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Antonio Lobo Antunes, William T. Vollmann, Thomas Pynchon and Jorge Luis Borges and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. If, after that, you still have any questions, read Rilke, Yeats, Paul Celan, Emily Dickinson, Friedrich Nietzsche and Jean-Paul Sartre.

Of course, if current trends continue and libraries go the way of 8-track tape stores, none of this will be possible.

[billstu]

01:21 PM on 05/01/2012

Great rack up loan debt for a career that pays nothing ... good luck!

[Paul M Bennett]

03:04 PM on 05/01/2012

Great, post a snarky comment that adds nothing...good job, billstu!

Seriously, why the sneer at writing? Lots of people make a living as writers, or at least by doing enough paid writing to make a living. I'm not just talking about the Stephen King level of writer, either. There are technical writers, for example, responsible for writing all the how-to manuals that geniuses like you ignore.

[billstu]

12:07 PM on 05/04/2012

All the writers i know are waiters and waitresses somewhere waiting for an opening in a very small market ... I published a magazine for 10 years and saw it first hand ... technical writing is a different animal because you need experience in that field of expertise ... writing is something like music ... you either have it or you don't ... your born with that gift and only study to hone your craft ...

[gr8bsn]

01:00 PM on 05/01/2012

More like "The ten best colleges for aspiring waiters."

You don't need to spend thousands of dollars and four years of your youth having some professor tell you how to write. If you are creative, sit down and start writing. The books that teach you style and grammar are in the library for free.

[Rockville]

01:59 PM on 05/01/2012

That may be true, but education is not adequate if simply obtained from reading. The experiences and knowledge of teachers is an important part of any education.

I have noticed lately that many seem to think that books take care of all learning. That is simply not true. Each teacher I've known could write book upon book, but their physical presence in the classroom and their knowledge and experience stimulate and encourage. There's more than style and grammar.

[walkinthedogdude]

10:08 PM on 05/01/2012

And try getting a little life experience, too.