Students walk on PLU's upper campus during a sunny fall day. Throughout campus are black & yellow PLU banners on lightposts.

The PLU Experience

PLU offers over 40 academic majors, 50 minors, and purposefully integrates professional studies with the liberal arts and sciences for a comprehensive education to successfully prepare students for “lives of thoughtful inquiry, service, leadership and care.”

Who teaches you?

All classes are taught by PLU professors, not teaching assistants, with an average class size of 21 students. Our professors are experts in their fields who care as much about who they are teaching as they do about what they’re teaching. They are mentors and fellow learners who encourage you to consider new ways of thinking, to take risks and grow.

Experiential Learning

Learn inside and outside the classroom. PLU offers close student-faculty research opportunities, along with study away experiences, internships, field studies, lab work, clinical hours, and more.

Why the liberal arts & sciences?

At the core of a liberal arts and sciences education is flexibility, creativity, critical thinking, and strong communication skills (particularly writing), all of which are critical to success today and in the future. It’s not surprising that a recent survey by the Association of American Colleges and Universities shows that more than three-quarters of employers would recommend an education with this emphasis.

All successful careers require critical thinking, teamwork, sensitivity to cultural, demographic, economic and societal differences and political perspectives, all provided by a liberal arts education. Currently, a third of all Fortune 500 CEOs have liberal arts degrees.

A distinctive approach to learning

What does it mean to go to a Lutheran university? At PLU, we believe in authentically engaging, questioning, serving and caring for our communities and the world.

Where the classes are hard. And the issues? Harder.

Students are taught to ask the big questions, from many angles, in PLU’s challenging International Honors Program.

Science happens (And so much more!)

Many of the numerous student-faculty research projects that take place at PLU each year are within scientific disciplines like biology, physics, etc. But that’s only the beginning.