About the Champaign-Urbana Community
Champaign-Urbana is a thriving community located within three hours of Chicago, St. Louis, and Indianapolis. Both within the University of Illinois and elsewhere, great things are happening--you can read about a few of them below:
Livability – University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign ranked #7 on Livability’s “10 Best College Towns 2014″ list, August 2014
FiveThirtyEight – Champaign-Urbana Mass Transit District (CUMTD) ranked #3 for Public Transit Use in Small Cities (& #7 Overall), July 2014
Forbes – University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign ranked #5 in Forbes’ list of “5 Colleges That Produce Awesome IT Grads”, July 2014
CNN - Booker T. Washington STEM Academy of Champaign Unit 4 Schools featured in “Better By Design” list, July 2014
Forbes – University of Illinois Research Park named one of 12 Business Incubators Changing the World, July 2014
Movoto Real Estate – Champaign ranked #7 in The 10 Most Exciting Places In Illinois, April 2014
NerdWallet – Champaign ranked Illinois’ Third Fastest-Growing City, April 2014
Smart Growth America – Champaign-Urbana named #5 Smart Growth Community (Small Metro Area), April 2014
Techie.com – Champaign-Urbana named a “Tech Hub to Watch in 2014″, January 2014
SpareFoot – Champaign-Urbana ranked #15 in Fastest-Growing College Towns, August 2013
Forbes – University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign ranked as Top Ten Public College, July 2013
NerdWallet – Champaign-Urbana ranked #5 in Best Places for Work-Life Balance, July 2013
Inc. Magazine – EnterpriseWorks named a College-Town Incubator to Watch, June 2013
Business Insider - No. 7 College Town in U.S.
Newsweek – Top 10 Hottest Tech Cities in the World
Readers’ Digest— Top 50 “Best Places to Raise a Family”
Expansion Management Magazine—A “Five Star Community” for Quality of Life (only 50 of the 329 metropolitan areas receive this recognition) & Ranked 10th in the Nation for Quality of Life in 2003.
Newsweek—Champaign-Urbana has more supercomputing power “Big Iron” than any other university in the U.S.
National Association of Home Builders—Ranks 22nd among metropolitan areas in the U.S. for affordable housing
Expansion Management Magazine - Champaign Unit 4 Schools recognized as a Gold Medal school district
U.S. News & World Report—Ranked the University of Illinois among the top 10 public universities in the nation
U.S. News & World Report – Ranked Health Alliance as the #1 HMO in Illinois
Wired Magazine “For the latest innovation, look slightly south of Chicago to Champaign-Urbana, a.k.a. Silicon Prairie”
Expansion Management Magazine— Ranked 44th most logistics friendly city
EDUCATION
Champaign County – Excellence at all levels: curriculum,teachers, facilities, and equipment.
Key statistics:
Ranked 6th out of 329 metropolitan areas for the percentage of high school and college graduates in the adult population:
- 87% of population over 25 has high school degree or higher
- 34% has bachelor’s degree or higher
- 10,000 UIUC graduates each year
- 2,000 high school & Parkland College graduates
Recognized for its Award Winning Public Schoolsby Expansion Management Magazine.
University High School, operated by the University of Illinois, is a unique facility for gifted and talented students. University High students’ ACT average composite was 29.6; national average was 18.8.