Here’s how TCU plans to maintain its happiest students status as enrollment grows
Three-and-a-half weeks into her freshman year at Texas Christian University, premed student Izzy Conley said friends at other schools have expressed to her that they do not like college yet, but she has felt the opposite.
“I think it’s just the environment,” Conley said. “Everyone here is really nice. I don’t think I’ve had a bad encounter with somebody yet. The culture here is really nice, and then the campus is really nice too.”
TCU topped Princeton Review’s 2026 list of schools with the happiest students, according to the company’s latest rankings of college and universities. The Fort Worth university also topped the 2024 happiness ranking.
The test prep company ranked schools based on surveyed students’ level of agreement to the statement “I am happy at my school,” according to the Princeton Review.
The ranking is in line with Conley’s experience, she said. It also matches the experience of finance and accounting sophomore Frankie Napolitano, who was not surprised when he saw TCU’s rank.
“The kind of product TCU offers is awesome because it’s a mid-sized private school that has big sports but also has an intimate class setting and clubs and extracurriculars and stuff like that, so you don’t really get lost in the I-feel-like-a-number kind of deal, which is great,” Napolitano said.
When it comes to numbers, TCU is growing. The largest-ever freshman class enrolled at the university this fall and overall enrollment is up 33% over a decade ago.
The school wants to further increase enrollment by 5,000 students over 10 years as it rolls out its strategic plan.
Napolitano is familiar with the university’s ambitions and is curious to see the impact of a larger student body.
“I wonder if that’ll change the student experience at all, in a positive or negative way,” he said.
Kathy Cavins-Tull, vice chancellor for student affairs, said maintaining TCU’s student experience and community is top of mind as the university plans its growth.
“As we do this slow growth, we are also scaling our staff and our faculty and our programs to make sure that students feel like they matter, that they have connections with their peers, but also strong connections with their faculty and their staff,” Cavins-Tull said.
Cavins-Tull attributes the ranking to a variety of combined factors, including quality of life, campus beauty, dorms, health services and library, all areas in which the Princeton Review survey also ranked TCU in the top 10.
“When you put all those things together, you understand why we might be ranked as having the happiest students in the country, because we have a lot of good things here, and together I think they make for a very great student experience on our campus,” she said.
McKinnon Rice is the higher education reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact her at mckinnon.rice@fortworthreport.org.
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