As a webmaster with over 15 years of experience building websites for universities, I‘ve seen first-hand that WordPress is the ideal platform. In fact, WordPress powers over 35% of all university websites. This is not surprising given its flexibility, ease of use, and wide range of powerful features.
In this expanded guide, I‘ll share my insider tips on picking the best WordPress themes for universities and colleges. Whether you‘re a student launching your first college project or a university IT director managing a site redesign, this guide has you covered.
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Why Use WordPress for University Websites?
Let‘s first look at why WordPress is the dominant choice for university websites:
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User-friendly CMS – WordPress is the easiest CMS for non-technical users to operate without coding skills. This allows university staff from various departments to manage content.
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Built-in features – Core WordPress comes packed with all the features needed for a university site like user roles, post types, taxonomies, menus, widgets, and theme support.
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Responsive design – WordPress themes are mobile-friendly by default. This is vital, as over 60% of university site traffic comes from mobile devices.
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Security – Advanced security protections like file system hardening are added at the hosting level for WordPress sites to combat threats.
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SEO optimized – WordPress follows best practices for on-page SEO. University sites built on WordPress enjoy excellent search visibility.
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Active community – As an open-source project, WordPress has a vibrant community of developers and users, making finding solutions easy.
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Extendable with plugins – Powerful WordPress plugins make adding complex functionality like course sales, admissions, etc. quick and easy.
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Designer-friendly themes – Thousands of themes across various niches allow universities to get a polished look without custom development.
Clearly, WordPress provides the easiest path to creating full-featured websites for educational institutions. Next, let‘s explore some of the best themes for universities available.
Top WordPress Themes for Universities and Colleges
1. Astra – Most Lightweight
Astra is my top pick for university sites due to its lightweight footprint and abundance of design options. Weighing just 50KB, it‘s one of the fastest loading themes.
Key Features:
- Loads in under 0.7 seconds
- Multiple header and footer layouts
- Customizable colors and typography
- 600+ Google Fonts to choose from
- Built for Elementor page builder
- WooCommerce ready
Astra cuts down on bloat, ensuring excellent performance. This is vital for universities running complex sites at scale. For layouts, it provides extensive header and footer options using the powerful Astra Customizer.
You can fine-tune colors, typography, spacing, menus, and more from a single dashboard without code. Astra also makes it easy to use Elementor for drag and drop page building.
Overall, Astra is my top choice for its combination of speed and customizability. The pro version adds premium plugins and extras for further flexibility.
2. Neve – Most Versatile
Neve is a relatively new multi-purpose theme that quickly gained popularity due to its beautiful design and versatility. It‘s a great fit for university sites.
Key Benefits:
- Lightweight and fast
- Suited for all site types
- Responsive mobile-first design
- Custom layouts and elements
- Full WooCommerce support
- Tabbed content display
Neve gives university sites the ability to create custom layouts and content elements using the Header Footer Builder. You can easily build conversion-focused landing pages this way.
For ecommerce, Neve is fully compatible with WooCommerce. This allows you to sell event tickets, courses, merchandise, and memberships online.
The theme is also fully responsive with a mobile-first approach. Page load speeds are further enhanced using lazy loading for images and an efficient codebase.
3. OceanWP – Most Popular
OceanWP is one of the most popular free themes with over 700,000+ active installs. For universities, it provides a Scholar demo with key sections.
Why Students and Teachers Love It:
- Intuitive drag and drop page builder
- Mobile ready responsive design
- Highly customizable options
- Built-in theme demo importer
- SEO optimized codebase
- Active community support
The drag and drop OceanWP page builder makes customization easy without touching code. Options like the transparent header let you create stylish designs that appeal to students.
Built-in performance best practices result in excellent page speeds. OceanWP also has a library of premium extensions for additional functionality like subscriptions, countdowns, etc.
With a 4.9 rating on WordPress.org and active community support, OceanWP is a leading choice for universities. The free version already packs a punch.
4. Hestia – Most Elegant
With its elegant one-page layout, Hestia Pro is a classy choice for university sites wanting a modern, stylish design. The clean look keeps focus on your academic programs.
Key Advantages of Hestia:
- One-page design neatly organizes info
- Easy customization with Elementor
- Landing pages for programs and events
- WooCommerce Subscriptions integrated
- Smooth parallax scrolling effect
- Matching Hestia Pro Child Theme
Hestia lets you create dedicated landing pages for specific university programs, events, research centers, and more using Elementor.
For selling online courses, it supports WooCommerce Subscriptions. This allows students to sign up for recurring access.
The parallax scrolling feature adds a sense of depth while enhancing visual appeal. Hestia‘s child theme provides further design options.
Overall, the sophisticated Hestia is perfect for universities wanting an elegant one-page site. Both free and paid plans are available.
5. GeneratePress – Most Lightweight
GeneratePress is renowned in the WordPress community for its lightweight footprint and high performance. As a result, it‘s trusted by many universities.
Some Key Benefits Include:
- Loads in under 0.2 seconds
- Seamless page builder integration
- Responsive mobile-first design
- Site-wide typography control
- Global color schemes
- Advanced layout engine
At just 30KB, GeneratePress eliminates bloat for much faster page loads compared to other themes. This keeps your site speed blazing fast.
The responsive design adapts beautifully to mobile screens of any size. GeneratePress is also coded to play nicely with all major page builders like Elementor.
The theme makes it easy to define global typography styles and color schemes for your entire university website.
Overall, GeneratePress brings a potent combo of speed, customizations, and extensibility through its rock-solid codebase.
6. Eduma – Most Feature Rich
Eduma is one of the most popular WordPress themes designed specifically for educational sites like universities. It comes packed with powerful features.
Some Highlights Include:
- Deep LMS integrations
- Course review and rating system
- Teacher profiles and lists
- Student dashboards
- Combined event calendar
- Easy drag and drop builder
- WooCommerce integration
Eduma is integrated tightly with LearnDash LMS to create and sell online courses. Student dashboards provide progress tracking and easy enrollment.
For events, it combines university, academic, and community calendars into a central view. This helps students see everything in one place.
The theme works well with Elementor and WPBakery page builders for drag and drop customization. The inclusion of WooCommerce also allows you to sell event tickets, merchandise, and memberships.
Overall, Eduma is the most feature-rich theme tailored specifically for educational institutions.
7. Sydney – Most Flexible
Sydney is a versatile WordPress theme suitable for all types of sites, including universities. The diversity of options makes it flexible for different needs.
Some Key Options:
- Box and full-width layouts
- Multiple blog page styles
- Custom sidebars and widgets
- Social media menu integration
- Full WooCommerce support
- Works with all page builders
Sydney lets universities switch between boxed and full-width layouts to find the perfect fit. You can match sidebars and widgets to each page for more flexibility.
For blogging, it provides list, classic, and magazine blog layouts. WooCommerce integration means you can easily sell anything online.
The theme also works smoothly with Elementor, Divi, Beaver Builder, and other top page builders. This makes customization a breeze.
In summary, Sydney offers excellent flexibility while being highly customizable. These traits make it suitable for diverse university website needs.
8. Schema – Most Specialized
Schema is built by a team specializing exclusively in WordPress themes for educational institutions. They provide unique designs catering specifically to universities.
Notable Features:
- University-specific demos
- Deep LMS integrations
- Event and course management
- Student profiles and forums
- Teacher profiles and lists
- Gallery templates
- Multisite ready
Schema ships with dedicated university demos that can be installed with a single click. It saves you weeks of development time.
Seamless LMS integration means you can easily create and manage online courses. For community building, Schema provides student forums and profiles.
Schema is also coded to be multisite ready for complex universities with sub-sites. The educational focused team offers excellent support.
For universities wanting a tailored WordPress theme, Schema is a specialist option to consider.
9. WR Nitro – Most Optimized
WR Nitro deserves a special mention for universities wanting a theme hyper-optimized for speed and performance. The optimizations create excellent user experience.
Some Performance Wins:
- Ultra-efficient code
- Ultra-fast browser loading
- Lighthouse scores 90+
- Build with Oxygen page builder
- Shared asset caching
- WebP image optimization
- Lazy loading assets
WR Nitro implements countless performance best practices such as efficient queries, cached assets, and deferred non-critical JS.
As a result, it achieves Lighthouse scores over 90 for blazing fast experience. The Oxygen page builder also uses minimal JS for speed.
Additional optimizations like WebP image compression and lazy loading further improve performance.
With its meticulous focus on speed, WR Nitro helps universities achieve lighting fast sites that delight students.
Honorable Mentions
Here are some other great themes that are suitable for certain types of university sites:
- Apostrophe – Stylish blog and magazine
- Faculty – Suitable for professor portfolios
- College Interact – Built for student interaction
- CharityWP – Non-profit and fundraising
- Divi – Elegant and easy to use
- OceanWP – Great for online course creators
- Education Base – Kindergarten and preschool sites
- Kindergarten – Daycare and childcare providers
This covers my top picks for the best WordPress themes for universities and colleges! Let me know if you have any other questions.
