25 colleges with super fast internet

Brandeis University came in No. 5 in the TestMy.net study

Taking an unusual twist on college rankings, ValoreBooks working together with TestMy.net analyzed colleges and universities for internet speed—differences in upload and download rates.

And it turns out that money in the bank doesn’t mean much when it comes to providing students with speedy internet.  In fact, some colleges you might expect to provide first class service in terms of network speed are actually “rather mediocre.”

“Notably, the college with the highest download speeds is not Harvard [23.1 Mbps] or Yale [25.6 Mbps], as one might expect,” suggests the researchers at ValoreBooks.  “Instead, Lamar State College in Port Arthur, Texas wins the gold medal for download speeds, clocking in at 154.8 Megabits per second.”

This is significantly faster than downloads at Stanford University (56.8 Mbps), Princeton (15.5 Mbps), or MIT (20.7 Mbps).

And internet speed matters.  Researchers depend on the capability to transmit information for their work.  Professors depend on it for instructional purposes, and students increasingly expect colleges to provide fast internet service in every area of campus.

Colleges are no doubt continuously playing catch-up when it comes to technology and the Internet.  It’s a constant challenge to upgrade and update.  But it is curious to see which colleges put a premium on internet speed benefiting the entire campus community.

“While Internet speed may not be the most important factor at play when choosing a college, a school’s investment in its technological infrastructure reflects its commitment to innovation—which should be on a prospective student’s checklist,” concludes ValoreBooks and TestMy.net.

On a website designed for self-testing, TestMy.net published average download speed test results from several local colleges and universities including the University of Maryland (52.6 Mbps), Georgetown University (26.1 Mbps), Old Dominion University (24.2 Mbps), the University of Virginia (17.7 Mbps), Radford University (17.5 Mbps), Longwood University (17.4 Mbps), and James Madison University (16.7 Mbps).

And for the record, the following colleges tested with the fastest internet speeds (ranked by download + upload):

1. Lamar State College—Port Arthur
2. Delaware Technical and Community College
3. Suffolk University
4. Texas A&M University
5. Brandeis University
6. Metropolitan State University of Denver
7. University of Wyoming at Laramie
8. Carroll College
9. Rice University
10. Langston University
11. Clarkson College
12. Central Michigan University
13. Minneapolis College of Art and Design
14. Bucknell University
15. Houston Community College
16. University of Texas at Austin
17. University of Minnesota at St. Paul
18. Columbia-Green Community College
19. Taylor University
20. Saginaw Valley State University
21. Drexel University
22. Oklahoma State University
23. Emerson College
24. University of New Orleans
25. Occidental College