Top Universities in Illinois

Illinois has one of the richest higher education ecosystems in the US — anchored by the University of Chicago and Northwestern (both in the top 15 nationally), the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and a dense network of liberal arts colleges and professional schools.

University of Chicago
Consistently ranked among the top 5 universities in the world — the U of C is known for rigorous core curriculum, economics (more Nobel Prize winners in economics than any other institution — Milton Friedman, Gary Becker, Eugene Fama, Richard Thaler among them), law (the Federalist Society was founded here; Richard Posner's law-and-economics movement emerged from Chicago Law), and physical sciences (Enrico Fermi led the first nuclear reactor experiment in the squash courts beneath Stagg Field in 1942). The Hyde Park campus's Gothic architecture and the Smart Museum of Art are notable.

Northwestern University (Evanston)
A top-15 university with exceptional programs in journalism (Medill School of Journalism, one of the finest in the world), law (Northwestern Pritzker School of Law), business (Kellogg School of Management), and medicine (Feinberg School of Medicine). The Evanston lakefront campus is one of the most beautiful in the Midwest.

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
The flagship public research university — UIUC is consistently #1 or #2 nationally in computer science, electrical engineering, and information science. The CS department produced the MOSAIC browser (predecessor to Netscape Navigator — the first graphical web browser, developed here in 1992). Also strong in agriculture (one of the top ag programs in the world), business (Gies College of Business), and architecture.

Illinois Institute of Technology (Chicago)
A STEM-focused private university with an architectural legacy — the campus was designed by Mies van der Rohe (1940s), making it the finest collection of International Style architecture in the US. IIT's College of Architecture is among the top programs nationally.