Trib Readers Vote Pitt Best School in Pittsburgh Area

Readers of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review recently voted the University of Pittsburgh the best college, university, or technical school in the Pittsburgh area.

The Tribune-Review reported Pitt’s head-of-the-class ranking June 27 in an article titled “Making education the best it can be” that was part of a special “Pittsburgh’s 250 Favorite Businesses” supplement. The article contains extensive quotes from Pitt Provost and Senior Vice Chancellor James V. Maher, who gives “three broad reasons” for the University’s success.

“We’ve been working hard to make the undergraduate experience here absolutely superb,” Maher says in the article. “It’s made an enormous difference in education offered to undergraduates coming to be with us. Secondly, we’re a major provider of advanced education in professions in the region. A very large fraction of professionals in Western Pennsylvania and the whole state get graduate degrees from the University of Pittsburgh.”

The third reason, Maher adds in the article, is that Pitt is “one of the biggest importers of federal research dollars in the whole country, bringing $630 million into Pennsylvania. That has a major impact on the economy of his region. It’s a major source of employment.”

Maher also notes in the article how Pitt and the city of Pittsburgh “are incredibly intertwined ... At remarkably many junctures, the University of Pittsburgh has stepped up to the plate and helped the city renew itself.” He concludes by voicing his hope that city-University connectedness continues “for many, many centuries to come.”