Infographic: the best education websites by the numbers

Surprising as it may sound, colleges and universities seem to have finally figured out social media. Long berated for giving only the most modest efforts at developing an online presence, higher education is, at long last, taking the Internet seriously.

As a higher and higher percentage of high school students spend more time online (and on social media in particular), colleges have made the realization that they stand a far better chance of attracting new applicants if they come visit them on their own turf.

The big social media sites have all become darlings of academia, and students seem not to mind one bit—the most successful schools rack up thousands of Twitter followers, hundreds of thousands of Facebook likes, and millions of views on YouTube, likely in large part from current, prospective, and former students.

And though a great many academies remain dinosaurs of Web 1.0, a few prestigious institutions have truly evolved into social media mammoths.

This Infographic from Best Education Sites breaks down the academic web space with some hard numbers, calling out the schools that are doing the web better than anyone else.

Created by: Best Education Sites

Which schools do you think are best represented online? Let us know in the comments!

Greg Voakes

A former Social Media consultant at AOL, Greg Voakes regularly contributes his written work as well as Data Visualizations (Infographics) to publishers all across the Web. He is a regular contributor to Business Insider, Guyism, and owns a blog called Fork Party.