Every year, the Princeton Review releases its famous list of the top colleges in America. In addition to that, they rank every school by a variety of factors annually. They have lists of the top party schools in the country, the top schools in terms of intramural involved, the top schools in terms of religious involvement, among many others. One of these rankings is the Princeton Review top-20 college newspapers.
Many of the top-20 schools are familiar names and big state schools, including the Universities of North Carolina (#3), Wisconsin (#4), Penn State (#5) Kansas (#6), Florida (#8), UC Santa Barbara (#9), South Carolina (#10), and Mississippi (#20). Others are big name private schools like Cornell (#1), Yale (#2), Syracuse (#7), Tufts (#12), and George Washington (#14). There are also a fair number of schools that may seem surprising like Colorado State (#11), Hampton University (#13), Bowdoin University (#15), Purdue University (#18), and Howard University (#19).
Most of these newspapers mimic professional quality, both in style and content. They’re highly read by their target audience, significantly more highly read than any other form of newspaper among college students. About 80% of college students report having read their student newspaper in the past 3 months and that number is undoubtedly higher at big schools with highly rated student newspapers.
These 20 newspapers have an average circulation of over 10,500 and the 20 schools have an average of over 24,500 students enrolled that can be reached through these newspapers. With the average newspaper being passed along about 2.5 times on average, there’s the potential to reach an even bigger audience than the pure circulation numbers would suggest.
Unlike print advertising in major national publications, which can cost 5 or 6 figures, the ads in these student-run newspapers only cost in the thousands, rather than tens or hundreds of thousands. The average full page, full color ad in a top-20 newspaper goes for around $2350, with the average full page, black and white ad goes for around $1875.
OnCampus Advertising has worked with every single one of these highly rated newspapers in the past, helping a number of different brands access this lucrative college market through these college newspapers. In addition to that, OnCampus Advertising has the ability to work with up to 1,500 newspapers throughout the United States and Canada.
