Carthage College

Private · Moderately Selective · WI

Photo: Richie Diesterheft from Chicago, IL, USA (CC BY 2.0)

School data & stats

TypePrivate

LocationWI · Midwest

SettingUrban

Undergrads2,660

Student:faculty14:1

Outcomes

4-yr grad rate56.4%

6-yr grad rate64.3%

Drop-out rate26.6%

Study abroad—

Cost

In-state tuition$39k

Out-of-state tuition$39k

Application fee—

Community

Racial diversity35.8%

Gender diversity57.3%

International1.6%

IdentityEvangelical Lutheran Church

Overview

Carthage College is a private college directly on the Lake Michigan shore in Kenosha, Wisconsin, roughly midway between Milwaukee and Chicago, affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. It combines a traditional liberal arts core with pre-professional programs, giving it a broader career-preparation identity than a typical small liberal arts college.

Academics

Carthage has built a genuinely distinctive niche in undergraduate space science — students in its program have regularly flown experiments through NASA-affiliated opportunities, an unusual hands-on research pipeline for a college this size. Beyond that signature program, business, education, and the health sciences are established strengths, and the college emphasizes close faculty contact and undergraduate research across disciplines, not just in the sciences.

Campus & student life

The lakefront campus is a defining physical feature — the shoreline setting is unusual among small Midwestern colleges and shapes recreational life and the general feel of the campus. Most students live on campus, and Kenosha's location between two major metro areas gives students access to Milwaukee and Chicago for internships and weekend trips without the college itself feeling urban.

Getting in

Carthage reviews applications holistically and is known for solid merit scholarship offers relative to its sticker price, a common strategy among private colleges of its size and regional draw.

Worth knowing

The space-science program's NASA-connected research opportunities are a real point of distinction — few colleges this size give undergraduates a comparable shot at flying actual experiments, and it's worth investigating directly for students interested in aerospace or physics.

carthage.edu ↗

Admissions

Acceptance rate87.1%

Enrolled mid-50%ACT 20–25

Test policyoptional

Rec letters0

Deadlines (2026–27 cycle)

AdmissionRolling

Applying