Our football blog series is back! Like last year, we’re using the football season as an impetus to ask ourselves how we stack up against other, similar regions. How does Ann Arbor compare to other college towns in the US?
Game 6! We are halfway through the season – and it’s finally feeling a little bit like autumn around here…
This one is against Indiana University in Bloomington, the Hoosiers. Good luck trying to find the origin of the term, which remains a matter of debate within the state… anyone born in Indiana or resident of the state is considered a Hoosier…OR anyone who went to Indiana University.
One thing Indiana University is particularly well-known for is its Music Program. IU Jacobs School of Music is widely known as one of the largest best music schools in the nation. The institution boasts an astounding thirteen choirs, seven symphonic orchestras, eight wind bands, a nationally lauded contemporary music ensemble, and well over 600 performances per year. With 1600 students, IU Jacobs School of Music produces a large number of top notch performers every year, many of whom go on to win positions in orchestras all over the world, or recording contracts.
The University of Michigan School of Music, Theater, and Dance also holds a high place in national opinion. It is considered to have the very best musical theatre program in the country, among other highly ranked performance, conducting, and academic programs, and consistently sends students to lucrative positions in the top Broadway stages and professional symphonies globally. Outside of classical music performance, the school also boasts a state-of-the-art music production facility and a low faculty-to-student ratio.
Both music schools offer a more well-rounded education to their students as a result of being part of larger universities – in contrast to schools like Juilliard, who produce fantastic musicians, but can’t provide wider avenues of study.
A big change from last year: Indiana University more than doubled their research spending in 2016 from approximately $200 million to about $485 million. This huge increase propelled them forward in the rankings from #101 to #46.
Bloomington and Ann Arbor are relatively similar, unlike some of our other comparisons. Here is our usual context to set the stage for the infographic:
- Bloomington is smaller than Ann Arbor by about 30,000 people – and IU has a larger total enrollment.*
- Both Bloomington and Ann Arbor are in similar proximity to a large metropolitan city – Bloomington is about an hour away from Indianapolis.
- We often show up on the same “best” lists, like The 50 Best College Towns to Live in Forever, The 100 Smartest Cities in America, Top 100 Best Places to Live, Best Cities for Entrepreneurs, etc.
*For the savvy ones out there wondering how enrollment affects population, population in the Census is usually calculated in a town by excluding college students – check out this article to go deep into the rabbit hole of how that can be problematic. We’ll be waiting right here when you get back…
ICYMI – Here are links to this year’s series on our athletic (and economic) competition!
