WHERE DREAMS RISE!
Blackburn College is more than just another four-year institution. It’s your head start on everything else that follows. From academics to campus life to friends and community—our purpose is to help you prepare for life after college. Since 1837, our ideal student is “intelligent, forward-thinking, and forward-looking.” Find your future here.
Located in Carlinville, Illinois, Blackburn College offers the traditional college experience, with so much more. You get the benefits of an easy-going small town. The engaging academic community, social life, and activities of a college campus. And, you get the real-life, ready-for-the-workforce skills unique to Blackburn!
Your preparation for life is the heart of the Blackburn experience. Here, you get more than just a classroom education. You develop the kind of leadership skills that immediately apply to nearly any job after graduation, giving you a head start in the working world.
As the only student-led college employment program in the nation, the Blackburn College Work Program not only makes a degree more attainable, it adds a new dimension to the collegiate experience. We literally rely on you, our students, to run the day-to-day operations across the campus. You’ll be included in campus planning committees. You’ll manage other students in the program. And, you’ll witness daily just how strong the connection is between your success and our success as a college.
Mission and Values:
Blackburn College links a rigorous and affordable liberal arts education with a unique student-managed Work Program preparing graduates for careers, community engagement, and lifelong learning.
The Blackburn community values critical and independent thinking, leadership development, diversity and inclusion, service, shared governance, and moral responsibility.
Vision:
Blackburn College aspires to provide a distinctive and innovative model of American higher education, grounded in scholarship, student leadership, and cultivated through a community of integrated work, learning, and service.
Accreditation:
Blackburn College has received official communication from the Higher Learning Commission that the College has successfully been granted reaccreditation. The decision follows a comprehensive evaluation of Blackburn’s work in its mission, ethical conduct, academic programs, and institutional effectiveness. The campus-wide, multi-year process culminated with an intensive peer-review visit in March of this year. Blackburn’s next, regular accreditation review is scheduled for the 2030-2031 academic year.
Blackburn College is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission (HLC). Its programs of teacher education are recognized by the Illinois State Teacher Certification Board and the State Superintendent of Education. The American Association of University Women grants Blackburn women graduates membership.
In addition to its representative memberships in various organizations that benefit specific administrative and academic departments, the College holds institutional memberships in the Council of Independent Colleges, the College Entrance Examination Board, the Federation of Illinois Colleges and Universities, the Associated Colleges of Illinois, the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges, and the Association of Presbyterian Colleges and Universities.
The Illinois State Board of Education approves our Teacher Education program, which includes 15 teacher licensure areas. Gateways for Opportunity entitles our Early Childhood program. Blackburn’s Business with an emphasis in Human Resource Management program is fully aligned with the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) HR curriculum guidelines.
Come to Blackburn College for a connection with an institution like no other. A place where not only do you get a high-level college education, but you get the experience of actually helping run the campus; experience for life. That sort of investment, in both the college and the students, is what makes Blackburn College a place where leaders rise.
