Milwaukee's a college town. Yes, you read this correctly. Think about it. For an area our size, we have one of the highest numbers of colleges per capita in the United States.
Alverno, Marquette, MATC, MSOE, UWM, Cardinal Stritch, Wisconsin Lutheran, MIAD, MCW, Mount Mary, Carroll, Concordia and a growing number of smaller, national institutes of higher learning like DeVry and University of Phoenix. It's an impressive list.
This month, The Daily Beast published its list "from first to worst" of "America's Smartest Cities." Milwaukee comes in at an impressive No. 15. One of factors driving this top 15 finish is "universities per capita."
The Daily Beast writes, "The Milwaukee area is renowned more for its breweries than its smarts. Rounding out the top 15 on our list may undermine that stereotype. Milwaukee did well in the universities per capita category and was also above average for voter participation."
Raleigh-Durham finished first, and here's the rest of the top five:
2. San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose
3. Boston
4. Minneapolis-St Paul
5. Denver
Milwaukee beat cities like Charlotte (16), San Diego (20), St. Louis (24) and Chicago (tied for 24). The dumbest (56) city on the list? Fresno. The Daily Beast says, "The race to the bottom wasn't even close. The largest city in California's San Joaquin breadbasket, Fresno, had deficiencies across the board.
Click here to see how the rankings were compiled.
A life-long and passionate community leader and Milwaukeean, Jeff Sherman is a co-founder of OnMilwaukee.
He grew up in Wauwatosa and graduated from Marquette University, as a Warrior. He holds an MBA from Cardinal Stritch University, and is the founding president of Young Professionals of Milwaukee (YPM)/Fuel Milwaukee.
Early in his career, Sherman was one of youngest members of the Greater Milwaukee Committee, and currently is involved in numerous civic and community groups - including board positions at The Wisconsin Center District, Wisconsin Club and Marcus Center for the Performing Arts. He's honored to have been named to The Business Journal's "30 under 30" and Milwaukee Magazine's "35 under 35" lists.
He owns a condo in Downtown and lives in greater Milwaukee with his wife Stephanie, his son, Jake, and daughter Pierce. He's a political, music, sports and news junkie and thinks, for what it's worth, that all new movies should be released in theaters, on demand, online and on DVD simultaneously.
He also thinks you should read OnMilwaukee each and every day.
