The 25 Best College Radio Stations

Nobody listens to radio anymore, right? Spotify this, Rhapsody that... there’s a large and growing number of internet streaming services that offer personalized stations, DJ-free programming, and hours upon hours of static-free listening bliss. Why would anyone with a stable internet connection actually choose to listen to an old-fashioned radio station? At least among the music and internet savvy, radio is so late '90s.

But it’s not dead. It’s just underground. For college radio stations, being underground is nothing new, it’s kind of their thing. College radio has been thriving under the radar for years, and has served as a springboard for some truly great artists. Artists like R.E.M. and Nirvana, or more recently Toro y Moi and The Local Natives were a mainstays of college radio long before they hit the masses. College radio is often full decades ahead of mainstream radio, and sometimes even comes out ahead of the internet. If you want to hear what’s going to be popular in a few weeks, months, or even years, tune into a great college radio station and listen to something you’ve never heard before.

At 6:00 PM on a friday night you may turn the dial and get an earful of death metal, but 30 minutes later hear a folk show DJed by a girl with a voice so tiny and squeaky that she surely has a vitamin deficiency. College radio has its quirks, but there are some seriously phenomenal stations out there, most of which have their very own internet streams. No need to bust out the old transistor, just hit up the stream or download the iHeartRadio app.

But where do we start? There are tons of colleges, and many have multiple stations. Surely you can’t be expected to wade through hours of sub-par stations to find that one golden station that played Youth Lagoon six months before anybody else did? Ain’t nobody got time for that! So we took the time for you.

Here are the 25 best college radio stations in the nation.

Website: WSOU 89.5 FM

Seton Hall University’s WSOU lives the philosophy “do one thing, and do it well.” WSOU’s one thing is loud rock and metal, and they are definitely doing it. Apart from a few specialty or community shows (one of which is called Polka Party), WSOU’s programming is entirely metal and loud rock. They have a whopping 118 hours of metal programming. 118 hours... of metal. It’s a metalhead’s dream, and a pretty interesting take on college radio.

Interestingly, Seton Hall is a Catholic university, which doesn’t exactly scream loud rock and metal. More interestingly, their Thursday 10-midnight slot is filled by Out of Babylon, a program filled with Christian hard rock and Christian metal. Yes, you read that correctly, Christian metal. Ladies and gentlemen—college radio.

Website: WOBC 91.5 FM

Oberlin College is fairly well known for being a bit weird. It follows then, that their radio station would be just as weird. Tuning into WOBC is a bit of a game of Russian roulette. Sometimes you’ll get your usual college radio fodder, but you’re just as likely to get some absurdly obscure experimental noise rock, some type of gamelan, or just a few lesbians arguing about whether or not political correctness is politically correct in our day and age.

Oberlin College is also home to Oberlin Conservatory, meaning that a decent portion of WOBC’s programming is influenced by students of classical music, or even the Conservatory’s TIMARA (Technology In Music And Related Arts) program. TIMARA majors have this tendency to play things that barely qualify as music for the sake of pushing boundaries, or they use their powers for good and uncover some hidden gems. Like I said, WOBC is a game of Russian roulette, but as long as you can avoid being shot in the face, there’s some great music to be discovered.

Website: WKDU 91.7 FM

Drexel shared CMJ’s 2010 Station of the Year award with CJLO, and is especially proud of their Saturday reggae programming. Head over to their website and check out their long list of in-studio performances and interviews. You may not have heard of most of the artists, but that’s kind of the point.

Website: WITR 89.7 FM

WITR’s top 20 lists artists like DRGN KING, Ra Ra Riot, Toro y Moi, Crystal Castles, Christopher Owens, and Ducktails, so they're clearly on top of their indie game. Rochester runs album reviews on their website, so you can read exactly why it is that DJ Cup-O-Joe keeps playing that new FIDLAR track.

Website: KVRX 91.7 FM

KVRX is only on the air from 7 p.m. to 9 a.m. on weekdays and 10 p.m. to 9 a.m. on weekends because they share their frequency with another local community station. However, they broadcast on the web 24/7, so you’ve really got no excuse to miss out. They promise to play “none of the hits, all of the time” and they most certainly succeed. I have yet to hear anything I was already familiar with while listening to KVRX. I also yet yet to hear anything that insulted my sensibilities.

KVRX also has the distinct advantage of being located in Austin, which means they get to host and curate their own SXSW event.

Website: KZSC 88.1 FM

Student radio at UC Santa Cruz started in 1967 with broadcasts coming from a dorm basement. It’s come a long way since then, and as of 2007, its signal had been upgraded to 20,000 watts. Despite the fact that there’s a lot of better things to do in Santa Cruz than listen to the radio, KZSC is still going strong.

Website: WFUV 90.7

WFUV has three different channels available on their website. You can tune into what’s currently being broadcast on 90.7 through the On-Air channel. You can forgo all the talking by clicking on the FUV all music station, or you listen to The Alternate Side, a station that plays only New York based artists.

Because WFUV has very limited student involvement, the station is very professional. These guys know what they’re doing, and it shows in their work. The shows may lack the awkward charm of a college DJ, but they more than make up for it in production value and shine.

Website: KAOS 89.3 FM

Evergreen State College’s station KAOS 89.3 gets the lucky title of having the coolest call sign in college radio. Call signs are the group of (usually four) letters that identify a radio station, and stations do not get to pick their own. You may have noticed that the first letters are usually K’s or W’s. The K is reserved for stations west of the Missisippi River, while W notates a station on the east side of that river. It just so happens that Evergreen State struck absolute call sign gold when their station was assigned KAOS. It’s pretty much the perfect call sign for a college station, you know, becasue it reads like chaos. Get it? KAOS? Chaos? Pretty sweet.

KAOS has a fairly large amount of talk and news programming, with topics ranging from women’s issues, local national and public affairs, and call in discussion. But don’t let all the talking distract you, they still boast a great lineup of world, hip-hop, rock, jazz, experimental and all the obscure things you expect from a college station.

Website: KWVA 88.1 FM

Started in 1993, KWVA is one of the youngest stations on our list. They take great pride in the fact that they’re completely student-operated and have live DJ’s every hour of every day. Many (and probably most) college stations utilize computer DJs fairly extensively to fill time. It’s not a taboo practice, it’s born of necessity. When stations don’t have enough resources or DJs to run shows at 3 in the morning they've got no choice but to put a computer in charge. The University of Oregon is proud not to have that problem.

KWVA strives to play music that you aren’t hearing anywhere else; the DJs have some pretty eclectic tastes and you’re just about as likely to hear some grungy garage rock as you are to hear a DJ gushing about how he loves EDM.

Website: WKNC 88.1 FM

WKNC shows come in a few main formats: Afterhours, Underground, Daytime, Chainsaw, and Local. Afterhours shows stick to mostly electronica, Underground is for hip-hop, Daytime spins indie rock, Chainsaw blasts metal, and Local plays only North Carolina based music. The station also runs specialty programming on the weekends, and has three regularly scheduled talk shows.

By far the most interesting thing the station does is it’s Local Band Local Beer events. Every Thursday night starting at 10 PM, WKNC sponsors a NC-based band at a local Irish pub. As the name would suggest, only local beer is served, and only local music is heard. It’s a pretty damn creative and effective way to promote the local sound, as everything is better when beer is involved.

Website: KANM 1580 AM

First thing's first—KANM is fertile ground for radio-related puns so allow me to just get that out of the way. The Texas A&M station broadcasts on an AM frequency, and is a college station in... wait for it... College Station, Texas.

Apart from the aforementioned AM broadcast, KANM has one of the most popular internet streams in the country. Maybe it’s their commitment to playing things that aren’t available on other media outlets. Each DJ’s show has a creative name, and their Tuesday 10-11 a.m. show “Tuesdays with Morrissey” has (hyperbole alert) perhaps the greatest radio show name of all time.

Website: WPTS 92.1 FM

Pittsburgh’s progressive FM, 92.1 WPTS does things a little differently than other college stations. They try their best to act like a "real" radio station. Most college stations are free-form, block style radio. This means that for large blocks of time, only a specific genre of music is played. There are hip-hop shows, alt shows, screamo shows... the list goes on. WPTS spurns that approach for a formatted programming that mimics that of commercial radio. Rather than blocking out genres, everything is mixed together, it challenges listeners by playing Black Star next to Belle & Sebastian followed by William Hooker. WPTS does this in an attempt to prepare their DJs for life in the world of radio, as the station was always meant to be a “working classroom.” It all comes off a bit more professional, collected, and matured than the other stations on this list.

Website: WTBU 89.3 FM

In Howard Stern, Boston University gets to claim one of radio's biggest names as a former DJ. Stern had a show called King Schmaltz Bagel Hour before being fired, because... Howard Stern. WTBU’s traditional radio signal is extremely weak; it doesn’t even reach outside the walls of the school's Communications building. Of course, they’ve got an internet stream that reaches everywhere the internet reaches.

Students at BU can apply to host their own show, but only after a semester-long internship/trial period. The required training does a good job to cut down on the awkward amateur effect that plagues college radio.

From an interview with Laura Jane Brubaker, WTBU’s Music Director: “Local indie music is the stuff that doesn’t get out there unless someone wants it to get out there...I get kind of irked when I see people playing Taylor Swift on their shows, because that isn’t the point of why we’re here. We are in a metropolitan university in a major city. We should promote stuff that won’t get out there otherwise.”

Website: KUPS 90.1 FM

In 2009, KUPS pulled in the MTVu Woodie for the best college radio station in the nation. But, more importantly, the station’s logo is an alligator spinning vinyl with headphones on. How cool is that? It’s very cool, as is the station in general. They just recently received a huge equipment upgrade, making the listening, DJing, and radio experience better for everyone involved. Every time I tune into this station, I’m struck by their sincerity, and the fact that all their DJs have some pretty legit taste. From their site: “We are music fanatics! We love shedding light on the artists that are making this big bowl of water we call home a more interesting place.”

Website: KALX 90.7 FM

KALX’s website features a small picture of an old cigar box filled with a few transistors and their connecting wires. That cigar box was the station’s first mixing board. Of course, that was back in the 60’s, when the station’s budget was “$500 a year and everything we could steal."

That cigar box was long ago traded for more current, less flammable equipment, but the same philosophy remains. Much like WPTS in Pittsburgh, KALX encourages it’s DJs not to stick to a certain type of music. The goal is to entertain the listener whilst broadening their musical horizons. Turns out, it works pretty damn well.

Website: KPSU 98.1 FM

Portland State wins the Pigeons and Planes best college radio station website award by a mile. It’s easy to use, easy to listen to, and most importantly fun to look at. The site also runs reviews of local shows, recent albums and new releases, giving you another way to connect with its DJs.

KPSU features a weekly live show that airs every Friday where a local band comes does a live studio set. It’s good stuff, and the Portland audience absolutely eats it up.

Website: UCLA Radio

UCLA’s station started out broadcasting on an AM frequency before moving to FM in the early '90s. In 1999, the unthinkable happened, and the FCC quite literally pulled the plug on the station, revoking their broadcasting rights. UCLA didn’t bat an eye, and moved to an internet only operation, making it the only radio station on our list that isn’t actually a radio station.

As it turned out, dropping the radio frequency had some distinct advantages. Apart from being absurdly less expensive, the FCC was now completely out of the picture. That means no monitoring, no censoring, and ultimate broadcast freedom. UCLA gets to push the envelop on controversial content. They have a self stated mission to provoke their listeners, and are truly grasping their internet only status with both hands.

Website: CJLO 1690 AM

It’s one of the few college stations that, apart from their internet stream, does not have an FM frequency, but broadcasts as an AM station. CJLO won CMJ’s station of the year in 2010, and this year was voted by CMJ as Best Use of Limited Resources and Best Team Effort.

CJLO’s AM status isn’t only a technical qualification, they act like an AM station. It’s almost entirely indie music, as they steer as far away from the mainstream as is transmittable.

Website: WCWS 90.9 FM

The history of radio at Wooster starts in 1922, when Professor Westhafer designed and built a radio transmitter to be displayed at an open house. When it came time for the big broadcast event, Westhafer went to power the beast up, and nothing happened. It was a big fat letdown, but fortunately for Wooster one of their students just to happened to be a physics wizard. Vic Andrew, who would go on to both invent coaxial cable and found the Andrew Corporation, a major supplier of industrial communications equipment, helped Westhafer design a new (functional) transmitter for the physics department. As it turned out, Wooster’s greatest radio resource came from its student body, and that’s still the case today.

Luckily for WOO91’s student DJs the station’s transmitter is already in place and functional, so there’s no need to hand build anything. But what they do bring is one of the nation's best specialty lineups. Among WOO91’s programming are 10 alternative shows, four pop shows, five rock shows, a full four hours of Transglobal Groove Collective on Sunday afternoon, and a plethora of other random but endearing programming. The DJs are great, and even when a show is labeled "alternative" you’re still likely to hear anything from Star Slinger to Danny Brown to Clams Casino.

Website: WICB 91.7

Ithaca College’s WICB 91.7 is another station that’s been rated at top of the college radio game for the past few years. In 2008 they took home mtvU’s Woody Award For Best College Radio Station, and they’ve been in Princeton’s top 10 for a few years running. The station’s broadcast reaches from Northern Pennsylvania to Lake Ontario, but (as is the case with most of these stations) the internet stream lets listeners tune in from virtually anywhere.

The station has about 19 hours of hip-hop in their schedule, with only three hours of news and talk programming, about 24 hours of speciality programming, and the remaining hours filled with what’s labled as Modern Rock, but is really an eclectic mix of everything you’d expect to hear on a college radio station. Tuesdays from 8-10 p.m. hold the Homebrew show that spotlights music makers from central New York. That type of hyper local programming is vital to what makes a college station great, the promotion of music that the mainstream ignores.

Website: WASU 90.5 FM

WASU pulled in MTV’s Woodie for 2012’s Best College Station. That award is pretty much a giant popularity contest, that doesn’t discredit WASU as a phenomenal college station. Specializing in low-key indie, you’re likely to hear bands like Soft Swells, White Wives, and Silversun Pickups.

WASU also gets to add its name to the growing list of stations that are available through iHeartRadio. Being able to listen on your mobile device is a huge plus, because, you know, nobody really owns a walkman anymore.

Website: WSBU 88.3 FM

Last year’s #1 station according to Princeton says that if you love music but hate radio, WSBU is the station for you. The station has been around since 1948 meaning they’ve been collecting music in their library for going on 65 years. I’m no mathematician, but that adds up to an absurdly huge library of music.

WSBU has a fairly weak broadcast strength, only reaching a 15-20 mile radius from their campus in Western New York, meaning they rely pretty heavily on their live stream hosted by Live365. St. Bonaventure’s station even has a magazine produced by the station’s public relations department. It started as an easy way to recruit DJs, but has grown into a full fledged campus media publication, complete with its own staff.

Website: WGRE 91.5 FM

DePauw’s “sound alternative,” WGRE 91.5 has many leather-bound books and smells of rich mahogany. Well, technically I’ve never been there, I don’t know the status of their books, or whether or not their studio smells of rich mahogany-but with more than 200 student DJs, WGRE is the largest student organization at DePauw. It’s kind of a big deal.

Despite some pretty extensive digging, the station’s program guide proved un-findable, so either they don’t have one, or it’s pretty damn clandestine. Without a guide for what’s going to be on when, the station has an air of mystery about it, but the good kind of mystery. There was some Karen O, some Dum Dum Girls, some Alt-J and even some Chet Faker. Sometimes it’s good not to know what’s going on.

Website: WERS 88.9 FM

Emerson College’s WERS 88.9 is, by consensus, one of the best college radio stations in the nation. Having made The Princeton Review’s top 5 for five years running, nearly every college radio ratings outlet has Emerson in it’s top 10, and for good reason. That Princeton list is based largely in on-campus popularity, so topping it consistently means this station is a big part of campus and community life. It’s important to make the distinction that WERS is very well funded. It’s managed by career radio professionals, but it’s DJed and run by college students. Despite its mainstream appeal, it still has the heart and soul of a college station.

Monday through Friday from 7-9 p.m. WERS broadcasts some of the best reggae you can get in the Boston area. Other highlights include their Saturday night/Sunday morning one-two punch of classic soul and R&B switching over to an electronic show at midnight. Don’t forget the Sunday morning Chagigah show, specializing in Yiddish and Klezmer music from 1914 to today.

Website: KEXP 90.3 FM

KEXP is a curious case. In a lot of ways, it’s a commercial station. Check out the lineups, check out the long list of phenomenal live performances. Bloc Party stopped by for an unplugged set, Grimes sat on their floor and turned knobs, Frightened Rabbit did their whole tortured scottish guitars thing, The Cave Singers rolled through. KEXP is doing it right.

KEXP, although it is a “service of the University of Washington” has little student involvement in operations—management and DJs are professionals. But it wasn’t always that way. Back in 1971, four undergraduates managed to convince the Communications Department to afford them a small budget for a student run station. Those scheming kids pretty much raised the antenna with their own blood, sweat, and tape decks. In the four decades since its inception, the station has gone through some serious growing pains, but it has evolved into a shining example of what happens when a passion project goes pro.

KEXP may not be the archetypal, student-run outfit we all envision when we think of college radio, but it is what pretty much every college station wishes it could be. And it is still owned by The University of Washington and represents a student body and a learning institution. KEXP's unreasonably amazing live performances, consistently fresh programming, and community standing puts it at number one on our list.