"Where the "Brains Are"--Most Important University Towns/Cities

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by dave8721

Are there any other post war Universities in the top 200?

Some of the California public schools would fit that bill.

Their public university system is the envy of the world, and they are not all 200+ year old heritage institutions like the Ivies or ox-bridge.


Here in Chicago we have the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC), which is an amalgam of some older institutions, but it didn't really gel into a proper stand-alone university until it had its main campus built on the outskirts of downtown back in the '60s.

Today, it has grown into to one of the very best public universities in the Midwest not in the Big 10. USNWR currently has it ranked at #97, just a hair behind the likes of the University of Iowa and Michigan State (two major legacy big 10 stalwarts).

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by dave8721

Age. Old cities have old universities which tend to be better. It actually makes me wonder, do we make new good universities any more? Are there any top 100 (or 200) universities created after 1930 or so?

I think the UCs are probably the only ones. UCI and UCSD are really new, and good. Even the traditional elite UCs are pretty newish.

Maybe also Stanford? Was Stanford as elite as today back 70 years ago? Probably not. No doubt it was always well-regarded, but I think it's rise to A++ elite is more recent, with Silicon Valley, and its uber-prominence in engineering and CS. 70 years ago, elite schools were probably more about literature and history. More Yale, less MIT.

A lot of this is due to the postwar rise of CA, and the West, and later, the Pacific Rim, and the rise of technical/science disciplines. As the region assumed prominence, the universities followed suit. Also, there were massive federal military and science investments in the West Coast around/after WW2.

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by dimondpark

Here's a look at Ivy league alum.

Ivy League Universities by Top 4 Cities With the Highest Concentration of Alumni:

Brown
1 New York
2 Providence
3 Boston
4 San Francisco

Dartmouth
1 New York
2 Boston
3 San Francisco
4 Washington DC

Princeton
1 New York
2 Washington DC
3 San Francisco
4 Boston

Cornell
1 New York
2 San Francisco
3 Washington DC
4 Boston

Yale
1 New York
2 Washington DC
3 San Francisco
4 Boston

Columbia
1 New York
2 Washington DC
3 San Francisco
4 Los Angeles

Pennsylvania
1 Philadelphia
2 New York
3 San Francisco
4 Washington DC

Harvard
1 Boston
2 New York
3 San Francisco
4 Washington DC

https://www.businessinsider.com/most...e-grads-2018-8

San Francisco is the world’s most powerful brain magnet: even in the East Coast they are top recruiters.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Yuri

San Francisco is the world’s most powerful brain magnet: even in the East Coast they are top recruiters.

I attended two of the schools on that list, and I'm highly skeptical of those rankings. I'd like to see how they compiled that list, and whether it includes all grads or just undergrads, and is it living alums or recent grads.

I'd be really surprised if NYC isn't the #1 metro for Ivy alums from every Ivy school, and by a longshot. I'd also be surprised if DC isn't the #2 metro for Ivy alums for all excepting Harvard and Penn. And I think LA and possibly Chicago would be up there with Bay Area. LA and Chicago have huge representation. Hollywood is thick with Ivy alums.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Crawford

I think the UCs are probably the only ones.

Well, as I mentioned above, UIC squeaks into USNWR's top 100 now.

It is one of only four R1 universities in IL, the others being the state flagship UofI down in Champaign, along with UChicago and Northwestern, which are both a couple of rungs up on the prestige ladder.

UIC really has had a tremendous rise over the past handful of decades, but its new-ness and a lack of a football program do keep it pretty under the radar, at least in terms of brand/name recognition outside of Chicagoland.

Additionally, like UC Irvine and some of the other "new" Cali schools, one of the prime ways that UIC really shines is in USNWR's "social mobility" ranking.

UIC is 11th among top performers in social mobility, a category that measures the extent schools enrolled and graduated students who receive federal Pell grants, which are given to students whose total family incomes are less than $50,000 annually.

source: https://today.uic.edu/uic-rises-to-t...eges-rankings/


So not only has UIC's academic star been rising, but it's also doing a great job of providing higher level university access to groups traditionally left out of that world. With a total student population of ~35,000, lots and lots of "first college degrees in the family" come out of UIC, which is cool.

[bilbao58]

Originally Posted by JManc

There are actually three separate UH universities in Houston proper. In addition to the flagship UH (Cougars), there's UH Downtown (Gators) and UH Clear Lake (Hawks) and a fourth one, UH Victoria which is about 50 miles away.

You must drive really fast and it just seems close. 😄 Victoria is about 130 miles from Downtown Houston.

[TWAK]

Originally Posted by dave8721

Age. Old cities have old universities which tend to be better. It actually makes me wonder, do we make new good universities any more? Are there any top 100 (or 200) universities created after 1930 or so?

Florida International was founded in 1965 and ranks #137. Are there any other post war Universities in the top 200?

edit: I guess the other directional Florida ones. USF was created in 1956 and UCF 1963

UC Merced, maybe, which is now part of the Bay Area. Humboldt State recently shifted to being a Polytechnic school, so that slightly counts as new.

[Doady]

I know Champaign probably has a big university just looking at the transit ridership numbers.

[Docere]

Doctorate degree

Boston 96,600 3%
Chicago 83,800 1.3%
Los Angeles 119,000 1.3%
New York 208,000 1.5%
Philadelphia 73,000 1.8%
San Francisco 86,400 2.7%
San Jose 45,200 3.4%
Washington 125,000 3.1%

[craigs]

Originally Posted by dave8721

Are there any top 100 (or 200) universities created after 1930 or so?

Yes. Just in California, there are several:

University -- Rank among the top 200 national universities (USNWR) -- Year founded

University of California, Irvine -- #34 -- 1965
University of California, San Diego -- #34 -- 1960
Pepperdine University -- #55 -- 1937
University of California, Santa Cruz -- #83 -- 1965
University of California, Riverside -- #89 -- 1954
University of California, Merced -- #97 -- 2005
California State University, Long Beach -- #137 -- 1949
California State University, Fullerton -- #166 -- 1957
California State University, San Bernardino -- #194 -- 1962


The baby of the UC system, Merced, is a real standout--it was founded in 2005, and is already ranked in the top 100 national universities.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by craigs

The baby of the UC system, Merced, is a real standout--it was founded in 2005, and is already ranked in the top 100 national universities.

now THAT is utterly wild!

well done UC Merced, strong work!



so we got those 5 impressive newer UC system schools in cali and UIC in chicago so far.

any other post-war universities in the top 100?

[DCReid]

Originally Posted by Crawford

I attended two of the schools on that list, and I'm highly skeptical of those rankings. I'd like to see how they compiled that list, and whether it includes all grads or just undergrads, and is it living alums or recent grads.

I'd be really surprised if NYC isn't the #1 metro for Ivy alums from every Ivy school, and by a longshot. I'd also be surprised if DC isn't the #2 metro for Ivy alums for all excepting Harvard and Penn. And I think LA and possibly Chicago would be up there with Bay Area. LA and Chicago have huge representation. Hollywood is thick with Ivy alums.

The list does show NYC as the #1 for all but 2 schools. Also, I'm not sure why you think DC would be number #2, I would believe that DC really did not become a prominent magnet for professionals until the 1970s growth of Federal bureaucracy, and even then there has been a tendency for professionals to move in and out of the DC area every few years with the administration changes. I would guess SF shows up because of the Silicon Valley boom that has been ongoing for at least 30 years or longer.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by DCReid

The list does show NYC as the #1 for all but 2 schools.

I attended one of the exceptions, and am highly skeptical NYC doesn't have the largest living alumni base, and the largest base of newly minted grads. I don't think it's close. I know around 40% of my graduating class ended up in the NYC area.

Originally Posted by DCReid

Also, I'm not sure why you think DC would be number #2,

DC is the most highly educated metro in the U.S., and DC's strengths correlate with traditional Ivy strengths. The Ivies are always top-tier in terms of public policy, law, consulting and the like, and are traditionally less noted for technical disciplines, as with MIT or Stanford. Ivy strengths play to K Street (and Park Ave.), moreso than Silicon Valley. And DC is the second largest eastern population center now, and most Ivy grads stay in the Northeast.

I'm too lazy to look it up, but if you look at the alumni roster for say Yale Law, or Harvard's Kennedy School, or Columbia's SIPA, DC has to be #2. They're far more likely to end up in Bethesda or Georgetown than Cupertino.

[JManc]

There might be a lot of top tier alumni in the Bay Area but the vast majority of the tech workforce went to 'average' universities. Here in the US and overseas. A lot of San Jose State graduates.

[SlidellWx]

Following Steely Dan's ranking, here is the breakdown for the South for institutions ranked in the top 200 national universities. There are 49 institutions that fell into this category across the South.

public schools are regular text
private schools are bolded
catholic schools are also italicized

#10. Duke University - Durham
#13. Vanderbilt University - Nashville
#15. Rice University - Houston
#22. Emory University - Atlanta
#25. University of Virginia - Charlottesville

#29. University of Florida - Gainesville
#29. University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill
#29. Wake Forest University - Winston-Salem
#38. University of Texas - Austin
#41. William & Mary - Williamsburg
#44. Georgia Institute of Technology - Atlanta
#44. Tulane University - New Orleans
#49. University of Georgia - Athens

#55. Florida State University - Tallahassee
#55. University of Miami - Miami
#62. Virginia Tech - Blacksburg
#67. Texas A&M University - College Station
#72. North Carolina State University - Raleigh
#72. Southern Methodist University - Dallas

#77. Baylor University - Waco
#77. Clemson University- Clemson
#89. Elon University - Elon, NC
#89. Texas Christian University - Fort Worth
#97. Auburn University - Auburn
#97. University of South Florida - Tampa

#115. University of South Carolina - Columbia
#115. University of Tennessee - Knoxville
#127. Samford University - Birmingham
#127. University of Oklahoma - Norman
#137. George Mason University - Fairfax, VA
#137. University of Alabama - Tuscaloosa
#137. University of Alabama at Birmingham - Birmingham
#137. University of Central Florida - Orlando
#137. University of Kentucky - Lexington
#137. University of Tulsa - Tulsa

#151. Florida International University - Miami
#151. James Madison University - Harrisonburg, VA
#151. University of Mississippi - Oxford
#151. University of Texas at Dallas - Richardson
#161. Mercer University - Macon
#166. Virginia Commonwealth University - Richmond

#176. Louisiana State University - Baton Rouge
#176. University of Arkansas - Fayetteville
#182. Belmont Unversity - Nashville
#182. Oklahoma State University - Stillwater
#182. University of Houston - Houston
#182. University of Louisville - Louisville
#194. Mississippi State University - Starkville
#194. Union University - Jackson, TN

There is actually a fairly large geographic spread of the top universities in the South with only a few metros garnering 2 to 3 top tier universities. These include Raleigh-Durham, Atlanta, Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth, Miami, Nashville, and Birmingham. Most of the top ranked public institutions are land grant schools that are still located in smaller college towns and cities.

[Steely Dan]

^ cool!

Raleigh-Durham is the most impressive concentration of heavy-hitter universities in the south, but there's no stand-out leader like Chicago in the Midwest.

And to no one's surprise, I guess there aren't any top-ranked catholic universities in the south

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

And to no one's surprise, I guess there aren't any top-ranked catholic universities in the south

curious about catholic universities of note in the south, i did find this list of jesuit universities in the US on wikipedia, and the only one in the south is Loyola University New Orleans, which ranks just barely outside of USNWR's top 200 national universities at #202.

the majority of major cities in the other 3 macro-regions all tend to have at least one highly ranked catholic university, and with a few notable exceptions, the majority of them are jesuit.

the jesuits seemed extremely inclined to build their universities in or very adjacent to major urban centers, but not in the south, except for new orleans for obvious reasons.

[cabasse]

i grew up in a small town not far from st leo university in central florida, which is one of a few catholic universities in the south. (non jesuit though) spent many summers in my adolescence swimming in the campus pool.

now, living in atlanta, my current residence is just down the street from one of their (apparently now previous) satellites.

[dave8721]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

now THAT is utterly wild!

well done UC Merced, strong work!



so we got those 5 impressive newer UC system schools in cali and UIC in chicago so far.

any other post-war universities in the top 100?

University of South Florida squeezes in at #97. Founded in 1956...in Tampa which is most definitely not in South Florida.

[Buckeye Native 001]

It's south of Tallahassee, so...