Enrollment: 35,165
Location: Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota
Bottom line: The University of Minnesota has long been considered a “Public Ivy” school — public universities that offer comparative education to Ivy League schools.
One look at the list of achievements from Minnesota’s alums backs that up. Among them are two former vice presidents of the United States, 26 Nobel Prize winners, 25 Rhodes Scholars, three Pulitzer Prize winners and arguably the greatest singer/songwriter of all time in Bob Dylan.
Athletically, the school most notably produced the bulk of the players on the most famous team of all time — the 1980 U.S. Men’s Hockey Team a.k.a. “The Miracle on Ice” squad — along with its coach, the late Herb Brooks.
Famous alumni: Bob Dylan, Hubert Humphrey, Walter Mondale, Herb Brooks, Garrison Keillor, Henry Fonda, Dave Winfield, Kevin McHale, Ric Flair, Brock Lesnar
Note: Numbers are based on median enrollment figures reported from 2019 to 2021.