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

[wwmiv]

Originally Posted by Quixote

Best Social Sciences and Humanities Schools

Political Science

#41 Johns Hopkins (go figure)

Being in the D.C. orbit, this is why Johns Hopkins has a decent International Relations and Comparative Politics faculty. Their graduates do well in the foreign service.

Many of these names you see here are big names in the field:

https://politicalscience.jhu.edu/people/

[JManc]

Originally Posted by pj3000

Stop pasting BS rankings.

Thread is about cities, not university rankings. [/b]It’s tired. Been done over and over and over again on here. Stop.

What he said. This thread is about college towns and cities. Enough with the comparison among colleges.

[CaliNative]

Originally Posted by dimondpark

Two Criteria Here:
1. Urban Areas with 200,000+ Bachelor Degrees Reported, 2021
2. 2010 Urban Area Borders

Since the 2020 borders aren't exactly known yet, I just used the 2010 borders, although judging by history, I don't suspect that much change so I feel comfortable putting this out


Urban Areas by Bachelor Degrees Per Square Mile, 2021:
San Francisco-Oakland, CA 2,804
San Jose, CA 2,618
Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA 1,922
New York-Newark, NY-NJ-CT 1,844
Mission Viejo-Lake Forest-San Clemente, CA 1,667
Washington, DC-VA-MD 1,630
Concord, CA 1,523
Denver-Aurora, CO 1,465
Portland, OR-WA 1,391
Honolulu, HI 1,352
San Diego, CA 1,340
Seattle, WA 1,331
Miami, FL 1,308
Austin, TX 1,294
Chicago, IL-IN 1,095
Salt Lake City-West Valley City, UT 1,074
Sacramento, CA 1,065
Baltimore, MD 1,039
Las Vegas-Henderson, NV 1,036
Minneapolis-St Paul, MN-WI 1,036
Columbus, OH 966
Phoenix-Mesa, AZ 944
Boston, MA-NH-RI 941
New Orleans, LA 928
Philadelphia, PA-NJ-DE-MD 909
Dallas-Ft Worth-Arlington, TX 882
Albuquerque, NM 872
Raleigh, NC 853
Houston, TX 840
Omaha, NE-IA 826
Orlando, FL 819
Tampa-St Petersburg, FL 798
Virginia Beach, VA 753
Bridgeport-Stamford, CT-NY 744
Buffalo, NY 744
Kansas City, MO-KS 742
Milwaukee, WI 741
Detroit, MI 733
San Antonio, TX 729
Charlotte, NC-SC 727
St Louis, MO-IL 712
Rochester, NY 709
Indianapolis, IN 699
Sarasota-Bradenton, FL 696
Albany-Schenectady, NY 677
Richmond, VA 670
Nashville-Davidson, TN 667
Pittsburgh, PA 658
Cleveland, OH 646
Cincinnati, OH-KY-IN 634
Atlanta, GA 632
Tucson, AZ 623
Providence, RI-MA 596
Jacksonville, FL 575
Louisville, KY-IN 556
Riverside-San Bernadino, CA 552
Oklahoma City, OK 548
Hartford, CT 538
Memphis, TN-MS-AR 482
Birmingham, AL 432

I'm surprised by how low Boston ranks in this list. Far below Bay Area cities, L.A., NYC etc. I guess Boston grads take their prestigious Harvard/M.I.T. etc. diplomas and move.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by CaliNative

I'm surprised by how low Boston ranks in this list. Far below Bay Area cities, L.A., NYC etc. I guess Boston grads take their prestigious Harvard/M.I.T. etc. diplomas and move.

Boston isn't dense by Urban Area. It has very low density suburbia, outside of the contiguous prewar burbs.

And there's nothing on this list that groups "prestigious Harvard/MIT diplomas". Any undergraduate degree counts the same, it seems.

[cabasse]

Originally Posted by CaliNative

I'm surprised by how low Boston ranks in this list. Far below Bay Area cities, L.A., NYC etc. I guess Boston grads take their prestigious Harvard/M.I.T. etc. diplomas and move.

it looks like it's degrees per square mile - i think boston (like atl) has fairly low density outside of its urban areas which would skew this kind of ranking. i didn't catch the "per square mile" part at first myself.

[CaliNative]

Originally Posted by Labtec

There's also Mercer University (ranked 166th), an hour south of Atlanta and Georgia State University downtown, just outside the top 200 (and the largest enrollment in Georgia). Atlanta has some of the top Historical Black Colleges with many famous alumni.

Rice U. Is a wonderful institution. The gem of Houston. If I find some time later, I'll share the story of what happened to William Sidis when he taught math there after he graduated from Harvard around 1916. He was younger than all of his students at Rice. Some people say that Sidis was one of the smartest people ever. But he was social awkward, so some of his students teased him, especially about girls. He left after less than a year. I wonder if he had what we would call Asberger's Syndrome today?

He spent the rest of his life doing menial jobs like operating calculating machines, doing his job in an hour or two. Having completed his assingments, he often spent the rest of his working hours reading stacks of newspapers, which made his coworkers angry. His favorite pastime was collecting trolley transfers, and he wrote a book on it. When offered managerial jobs at higher pay, he refused them. He also wrote a science treatise, and suggested the existence of black holes. Sidis died young, in his 40s. Perhaps social stress over the years had something to do with his early death. Geniuses were often not treated well in the schools in America, and not always recognized. Now we celebrate nerds and geniuses, and richly reward them. Sidis would fit in better today. He was born a century too early.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Boston isn't dense by Urban Area. It has very low density suburbia, outside of the contiguous prewar burbs.

Yeah, the whole "degrees per square mile by urban area" says more about regular old population density than anything else.

[CaliNative]

Boston perhaps hasn't capitalized on is prestigious universities as much as the Bay Area has. The Bay Area for decades has had a huge venture capitalist community, often centered on Stanford connections, that funds start up tech companies. Boston, less so. I would venture that many M.I.T. grads head to Silicon Valley with their degrees. New York City may have more Harvard grads than Boston itself. Maybe someone has the data to support or refute my impressions.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by CaliNative

Rice U. Is a wonderful institution. The gem of Houston.

Rice has this amazing pub (for grad students) on campus, Valhalla.

[DCReid]

Originally Posted by CaliNative

Boston perhaps hasn't capitalized on is prestigious universities as much as the Bay Area has. The Bay Area for decades has had a huge venture capitalist community, often centered on Stanford connections, that funds start up tech companies. Boston, less so. I would venture that many M.I.T. grads head to Silicon Valley with their degrees. New York City may have more Harvard grads than Boston itself. Maybe someone has the data to support or refute my impressions.

I'm not sure why you think Boston has not capitalized on its universities. It's doing fine and has plenty of high tech, especially biotech. It has more traditional high tech like networking and computers, but that drifted away, and Boston has the largest biotech cluster in the nation. I would bet that the universities helped rejuvenate Boston, if anything. It's doing way better than other New England cities like Hartford and just as good as NYC and DC, and better than Philly. No area can really compare to Silicon Valley, which is also helped by being in the largest and most influential US state.

[DCReid]

Originally Posted by CaliNative

Rice U. Is a wonderful institution. The gem of Houston. If I find some time later, I'll share the story of what happened to William Sidis when he taught math there after he graduated from Harvard around 1916. He was younger than all of his students at Rice. Some people say that Sidis was one of the smartest people ever. But he was social awkward, so some of his students teased him, especially about girls. He left after less than a year. I wonder if he had what we would call Asberger's Syndrome today?

He spent the rest of his life doing menial jobs like operating calculating machines, doing his job in an hour or two. Having completed his assingments, he often spent the rest of his working hours reading stacks of newspapers, which made his coworkers angry. His favorite pastime was collecting trolley transfers, and he wrote a book on it. When offered managerial jobs at higher pay, he refused them. He also wrote a science treatise, and suggested the existence of black holes. Sidis died young, in his 40s. Perhaps social stress over the years had something to do with his early death. Geniuses were often not treated well in the schools in America, and not always recognized. Now we celebrate nerds and geniuses, and richly reward them. Sidis would fit in better today. He was born a century too early.

I read somewhere that a few years ago Rice was told to raise their tuition to appear more selective and competitive with the Ivys. Apparently, that plan worked as applications surged. It appears that most top ranked schools charge high tuition and fees but offer generous scholarships awards to many students.

[Shawn]

Originally Posted by CaliNative

The Bay Area for decades has had a huge venture capitalist community, often centered on Stanford connections, that funds start up tech companies.

The Bay Area has for decades been the single most concentrated source of venture capital on the planet . . . and for decades, Boston has been the second largest VC center in North America, after SF and ahead of NYC. It's been the country's largest biotech VC center and largest NIH recipient for most of my 40+ years. Massachusetts Congressional District 7 alone (Boston, Cambridge, bits of a few other inner ring burbs) receives more NIH grants this year (and basically every year) than any other whole state not named NY, CA, or PA.

Massachusetts Congressional District 7, 2022 NIH grants: $2,053,125,028
Massachusetts Districts 7 + 8, 2022 NIH grants: $2,677,328,027
Mass statewide 2022 NIH grants: $3,219,114,473

Combined 2022 NIH grants for the states of Ohio, Michigan, and Florida: $2,675,538,379

Combined 2022 NIH grants for the states of Alaska, Alabama, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, (Puerto Rico), South Carolina, South Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia, Wyoming: $2,025,576,487

Lots of fun NIH stuff here.

Nuts to think MA, CA, and NY make up over 50% of the country's NIH research.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Shawn

The Bay Area has for decades been the single most concentrated source of venture capital on the planet . . . and for decades, Boston has been the second largest VC center in North America, after SF and ahead of NYC. It's been the country's largest biotech VC center and largest NIH recipient for most of my 40+ years. Massachusetts Congressional District 7 alone (Boston, Cambridge, bits of a few other inner ring burbs) receives more NIH grants this year (and basically every year) than any other whole state not named NY, CA, or PA.

Massachusetts Congressional District 7, 2022 NIH grants: $2,053,125,028
Massachusetts Districts 7 + 8, 2022 NIH grants: $2,677,328,027
Mass statewide 2022 NIH grants: $3,219,114,473

Combined 2022 NIH grants for the states of Ohio, Michigan, and Florida: $2,675,538,379

Combined 2022 NIH grants for the states of Alaska, Alabama, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, (Puerto Rico), South Carolina, South Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia, Wyoming: $2,025,576,487

Lots of fun NIH stuff here.

Nuts to think MA, CA, and NY make up over 50% of the country's NIH research.

I'm guessing PA or NJ were historically third with pharma? Pharma also leverages the VC model quite a bit.

[ocman]

Originally Posted by dimondpark

Two Criteria Here:
1. Urban Areas with 200,000+ Bachelor Degrees Reported, 2021
2. 2010 Urban Area Borders

Since the 2020 borders aren't exactly known yet, I just used the 2010 borders, although judging by history, I don't suspect that much change so I feel comfortable putting this out


Urban Areas by Bachelor Degrees Per Square Mile, 2021:
San Francisco-Oakland, CA 2,804
San Jose, CA 2,618
Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA 1,922

LA is actually surprising and must have shot up in the previous decades. LA used to be known just recently as undereducated due to its overwhelming working-class immigrant and blue collar workforce in terms of educational development

[ocman]

Originally Posted by craigs

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.

Also, Chapman University in Orange debuted on the national rankings in 2020 at around #121. It claims to have been founded in 1861 in downtown LA, but was really established in the 1950s as it is now.

But cities with elite public schools are much more significant for this discussion because they accommodate undergraduate class sizes in the tens of thousands, often magnitudes more than what elite private universities can accommodate.

[ocman]

Originally Posted by TWAK

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.

UC Merced is certaintly not part of the bay area. It’s closer to commute from Fresno than it is from San Francisco.

[CaliNative]

Originally Posted by ocman

LA is actually surprising and must have shot up in the previous decades. LA used to be known just recently as undereducated due to its overwhelming working-class immigrant and blue collar workforce in terms of educational development

L.A. area for many decades has had great concentrations of brainpower. Prestigious universities like UCLA, CalTech, UC Irvine, USC, the Claremont Colleges are there, as well as several large state college campuses. West L.A., OC, and many parts of the SF and SG valleys have scads of smart people. The "Big Bang Theory" was set in Pasadena for a reason, and CalTech astronomer Edwin Hubble made his great discoveries at Mt. Wilson back in the 1920s. Until the 1990s, L.A was the center of the aerospace industry, and is still important. SpaceX is based there, and look what they have done. NASA-JPL also. The film and entertainment industry is filled with smart and creative people. Of course the area is also A huge manufacturing and distribution powerhouse. L.A. is many things.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by ocman

LA is actually surprising and must have shot up in the previous decades. LA used to be known just recently as undereducated due to its overwhelming working-class immigrant and blue collar workforce in terms of educational development

once again, those "degrees per sq. mile" stats say way more about regular old population density than they do about how educated a given urban area is.

not saying that LA isn't an "educated city", but to argue that it's more educated, in an overall sense, than a city like boston, merely because people tend to live FAR more densely in the LA UA than they do in the boston UA, is missing the point a bit.

[dimondpark]

Originally Posted by ocman

UC Merced is certaintly not part of the bay area. It’s closer to commute from Fresno than it is from San Francisco.

I agree with your assertion but he is referring to the CSA. Merced is now part of the Bay Area's Combined Statistical Area due to commuting, which seems so far fetched but alas this is the world we now live in. Stockton, Modesto and Merced are now Bay Area suburbs.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by dimondpark

I agree with your assertion but he is referring to the CSA. Merced is now part of the Bay Area's Combined Statistical Area due to commuting, which seems so far fetched but alas this is the world we now live in. Stockton, Modesto and Merced are now Bay Area suburbs.

I have several co-workers in Tracy, Manteca and Stockton. Commutes from hell.