Before we begin down the road of ranking prestigious educational institutions of higher learning in America, we wanted to define what a stoner college was before assuming you already knew that.
A stoner college, for the matter of our rankings, is any college in America that gives you the chance at a four-year college degree in various different fields of study and a place where a large number of students like to partake in one of the most relaxing forms of partying: smoking pot.
A typical high school senior spends their last year of high school planning on what they are going to do with their lives. Some graduate early to start working to support their families while a majority of young adults spend a long time figuring out which college they are going to attend.
Our rankings are fun and should not affect your decision-making process for college in any way, shape, or form. This is a ranking for those currently in college that might see their school (or one nearby) mentioned. It is also for the people that graduated or just like to have fun. (Just because you don’t attend any of these schools doesn’t mean you can’t party it up on campus, trust us, you can!)
So without getting into the weeds, literally, and boring you with the details behind our rankings, how about we just get started.
30. Brown University (Providence, RI)
Have you ever heard anyone say harm-reduction model when discussing drug or alcohol use? It means that instead of preventing people from using drugs, it lessens the potential harms of using that drug and this model is in Brown’s school policy.
In other words, students at Brown experiment a lot with marijuana.
29. Tulane University (New Orleans, LA)
New Orleans isn’t just a town for drinking alcohol, many locals spend time enjoying the higher things in life. LSU might be a bigger campus with more students but that’s a party school where everyone drinks more than they smoke. At Tulane, everyone smokes more than they drink.
28. University of Massachusetts Amherst (Amherst, MA)
UMass Amherst is a party school through and through, so if drugs aren’t your thing, no worries—the alcohol is flowing like the salmon of Capistrano.
It wasn’t easy ranking them here because everyone is smoking pot but no one remembers.
27. University of Nevada, Las Vegas (Las Vegas, NV)
In the early 2010s, Sue Sisley was fired at the University of Arizona and hired to conduct research on medical marijuana’s Effect on soldiers dealing with PTSD.
Her groundbreaking research is just one of the many highly touted researchers involved in such a study with UNLV—and now that it’s legal, students there are able to have a better time in Sin City than ever before.
26. Washington State University (Pullman, WA)
When pop became a legal recreational drug in the state of Washington, the rules changed for students outside the school.
If you are living on campus or if you are on campus for any reasons, you are still prohibited for drug use because the school does not want to lose out on their federal financial aid funding, among many other federally funded grants that require the school to remain drug-free.
With that said, the more the man says no, the more people tend to do the opposite. This campus doesn’t rank much higher, but it is slowly climbing.
25. San Diego State University (San Diego, CA)
Every student at any college will tell you that marijuana is prevalent on campus. The point of this story is to find the schools that have the highest number of students and faculty using pot, not just that the school uses it.
San Diego State is such a fun school in SoCal that one of its professors decided to open up his own medical marijuana shop in 2014.
24. Colgate University (Hamilton, NY)
Like the toothpaste? Wait, did we say toothpaste? That’s a weird word to say, Colgate. Um, oh hi. Sorry about that, we might be doing a little too much hands-on research on this list.
23. Sarah Lawrence College (Bronxville, NY)
Do not forget the main reason we are making this list for you today, so you may make the right decisions in life. That being said, Sarah Lawrence College is a great choice for the Bro’s out there for two reasons; the women are underrated and are stacked while the pot is flowing through the school like alcohol in Mississippi during prohibition.
22. Bard College (Annandale-on-Hudson, New York)
It is hard to find a school like Bard College (a private liberal arts college) that isn’t in contention for a list of the biggest stoner colleges in America. The students are there to open up and free their minds to come up with creative and amazing ideas.
If the Eagles could go on a nature quest and come back with an amazing album cover in the process, then Bard College deserves a spot on the list.
21. Warren Wilson College (Asheville, NC)
If you are still confused on what we just said about Bard College, know this about Warren Wilson College: James Franco went to Warren Wilson College.
If you don’t think weed is big on campus, you must not have seen Pineapple Express.
20. University of California—Berkley (Berkley, CA)
There is no reason you shouldn’t take a tour of the colleges in California, especially the ones like UC Berkley where the pot is shipped in gold UPS bags.
19. Reed College (Portland, OR)
Reed College was already making these lists for many years before weed was legalized in Oregon so imagine what it is like to go to Reed College now?
18. Colorado State University (Fort Collins, CO)
Weed is obviously legal in Colorado, and while that doesn’t mean it is legal on campus, all you have to do is step off campus and you are good to go.
Is that why the football team is doing better since 2014?
17. Humboldt State University (Arcata, CA)
What else are they supposed to do in the hills of West Virginia besides getting stoned out of their minds between classes?
15. University of Oregon (Eugene, OR)
There isn’t a better state or college to party like a rockstar than the University of Oregon. The mascot is a duck that can move like Jagger and has become the school’s biggest promoter since the late 90s.
How could you not be high when you think up an idea that includes blatantly stealing Disney’s Donald Duck and turning him into an Oregon Duck?
14. New College of Florida (Sarasota, FL)
The reason they put the word New at the front of the name of the school is that this is a school made specifically for millennials although it has been around since the 50s.
This school is a public liberal arts college in Florida, there are literally no rules once you set foot on campus and that includes going to class, studying, and taking exams.
This school is more laid back and stoned than Matthew McConaughey in Jamaica.
13. University of Illinois (Urbana & Champaign, IL)
The President of the United States, Barrack Obama, hails from Chicago where several miles South there is a college by the name of the University of Illinois. You might have heard of it, right?
This is one of the biggest schools on the list so the number of students smoking pot and enjoying college life is much larger than a lot of the other schools combined.
12. Pitzer College (Claremont, CA)
Some of the greatest colleges for enjoying pot are the ones where the peer pressure doesn’t exist.
Pitzer College is one of the many on this list that everyone who attends, chooses to either do drugs or not but they never force others around them which has created a positive environment for a school in Cali.
11. University of California—Santa Barbara
There are so many reasons to love California. The weather is perfect, the landscape is idyllic, and the pot is literally everywhere.
Of all the schools in Cali, UC Santa Barbara is one of our favorites for its perfect combination of all three things we love most about California.
10. Guilford College (Greensboro, NC)
For the longest of times, Guilford College has been known as a weed-friendly school—just ask any student there and they will tell you all about the best places to smoke, where to buy, and how to just kick back and enjoy life.
9. Eckerd College (St. Petersburg, FL)
Have you ever heard of Eckerd College? No? Neither did any of us until a few years ago when their reputation for being a pot-friendly school got their names on a list of the nation’s best stoner colleges.
They have literally remained on that list ever since then.
8. Skidmore College (Saratoga Springs, NY)
Maybe it is just us but notice anything wrong with all these top schools? No one has ever heard of many of them outside of being named a stoner college.
If they have been making lists like that forever, we just had to confirm for ourselves. The research was conclusive. This school belongs in the top ten.
7. University of Wisconsin (Madison, WI)
A school doesn’t become known as a major party school without at least being mentioned in a list of the biggest stoner colleges.
So for the University of Wisconsin, all you need to know is that the weed you are smelling around campus isn’t skunk cabbage.
6. University of Vermont
Of all the liberal states and cities in America, did you know that the best pot in this country comes from Vermont? That’s right.
The West Coast can do all the bragging they want about marijuana, the best pot doesn’t come from anywhere west of the Appalachian Mountains. Maybe this school is a front for something bigger…
5. Ithaca College (Ithaca, NY)
An Ithaca College student once told a story to The Ithacan last year talking about how he got caught in violation of marijuana possession and had to pay the consequences. But the second time it happened, instead of getting kicked out of the college, the campus police gave him a warning.
A warning? That’s it?
4. Lewis & Clark College (Portland, OR)
Just like the explorers that the college is named after, Lewis & Clark, incoming freshmen and students looking to explore the drug culture have been attending for many years and partying the entire time along the way.
3. The Evergreen State College (Olympia, WA)
How could the college that sounds like a bad joke in a Cheech and Chong movie not be ranked this high on the list of stoner colleges?
It is the Evergreen State College and its mascot should be a large pot plant holding a flag with a marijuana leaf on it.
2. University of California—Santa Cruz
If not for the next and final entry on our list, UC Santa Cruz college would be the top-ranked stoner college.
Not only do students know how to have fun, but they know how to be smart with pot along the way.
1. University of Colorado (Boulder, CO)
The University of Colorado in Boulder has almost always been a top five school for marijuana use on campus, and it’s even better today.
Again, the school is strict about drug use on campus so all the students have to do is step off campus. It isn’t too difficult to find a nice quiet place to relax with a joint in Colorado, is it?