Western Illinois University's photostream

Photos provided by the WIU Visual Production Center and submitted by University Relations

Western Illinois University's Macomb campus is located in west central Illinois, approximately 40 miles east of the Mississippi River, where Illinois, Iowa, and Missouri meet. WIU is ranked in the top tier of Midwest Universities Master's granting institutions, according to U.S. News and World Report's Annual College Rankings 2010 edition, and for the fifth consecutive year, Western has also been re-named a Best Midwestern College by the Princeton Review. Recently, the Southern Regional Education Board, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that works with 16 member states to improve public pre-K-12 and higher education, cited WIU among just 15 U.S. colleges and universities in the U.S. -- and the only Illinois university listed -- that are outperforming most similar institutions in helping students succeed and graduate.

With a full-time faculty who teach 95 percent of classes, WIU offers an average undergraduate class size of 28 students, and the student-to-faculty ratio is 17:1. Combined enrollment for WIU's Macomb and Quad Cities campuses is 12,679.

WIU also offers the GradTrac, or "Graduation Guarantee," program that guarantees to new freshmen, if they meet GradTrac requirements, they will graduate in four years or their remaining tuition will be free. In addition, WIU offers a four-year cost guarantee, a guaranteed rate for tuition, fees, and room and board, which freezes the per-hour rate undergraduate students pay for a four-year period.