Here Are The Best Colleges For Rural America

August 31, 2026 11:58 AM ET A new Washington Monthly analysis spotlights several of what it deems the “best colleges for rural America.”The magazine ranked the University of West Alabama (UWA) as the top college in its new ranking. Four years after graduation, UWA students earn a median income of $64,122 — $26,561 more than they would be expected to earn if they had graduated from a typical college in the U.S., Washington Monthly’s report found. (RELATED: It’s Harder For Zoomers To Afford These Five Mainstays Of Life That Boomers Could When They Were Their Age)As of 2024, more than a quarter of UWA’s undergraduate students and more than three-quarters of its master’s students finished with an education credential in an area of the U.S. that is facing teacher shortages, according to the rep