Loyola University New Orleans is a Jesuit institution in Louisiana’s largest city which opened in 1904. The state granted it degree-awarding powers in 1912, but it has only been known as Loyola University New Orleans since 1996, with the name change designed to distinguish it from Loyola institutions in Baltimore, Chicago and Los Angeles.

Evening classes began in 1919, and became so popular that they had their own faculty for a spell, but since 2006, each college has been tasked with overseeing adult education provision. Loyola continued to grow over the following decades, and now has more than 70 programmes for undergraduates and postgraduates. In 1969, Monroe Hall, a 180,000-square foot sciences building, was constructed, and in 1999, the university built a 150,000-square foot library.

Ranking compilers have noted its diversity, low student-staff ratios, value for money and town-gown relations. Around 90% of its students are recipients of one or more forms of financial aid. LUNO is open to students of all religions and denominations.

The birthplace of jazz, New Orleans is one of the most fascinating cities in the South, oozing with history, culture and nightlife.

The university’s campus was evacuated in 2005 in advance of Hurricane Katrina, and it suffered minimal damage. LUNO did, however, initiate a reorganisation, becoming a five-college institution and opening nursing and mass communication schools which became part of the College of Social Sciences.

Walter Block, an Austrian School economist influenced by Friedrich Hayek and Ayn Rand, has worked in the university’s business school, which has ranked among the best in the South. Simpsons star Harry Shearer, who voices Mr Burns, Principal Skinner, Reverend Lovejoy, Kent Brockman and Waylon Smithers among others, became an artist-in-residence in 2013.