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SF Bay Area has two top notch universities, including the worlds best public school and a very good school with UC Santa Cruz and a nice school from UCSF but Boston wins the university debate, the best place in the world for higher ed IMO, tied with only NYC metro.
Boston-Worcester-Manchester, MA-RI-NH
#1 Harvard
#5 MIT
#15 Brown
#29 Tufts
#31 Boston College
#31 Brandeis
#53 Boston University
Reserve in top 75- #62 Northeastern and #62 Worcester Polytechnic Institute, same score.
New York-Newark-Bridgeport, NY-NJ-CT-PA
#2 Princeton
#3 Yale
#4 Columbia
#33 NYU
#45 Yeshiva
#53 Fordham
Boston
#4 Harvard University
#5 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
#51 Brown University
#54 Boston University
#72 University of Massachusetts
#87 Tufts University
#150 Boston College
NYC
#6 Princeton University
#11 Yale University
#14 Columbia University
#41 New York University
#99 Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
#156 Yeshiva University
#162 Stony Brook University
SF Bay Area
#2 Stanford University
#9 University of California, Berkeley
#122 University of California, Santa Cruz
Not disputing this because there are all sorts of different rankings based on often fluffy criteria that I dont buy but who am I to say...
However I think the ranking below offers the best academically focused ranking: North American Cities in Academic Ranking of World Universities
Their criteria:
100 Miles is a very large area. There are way more than 200 institutions of higher education in a 100 Miles radius of Philadelphia and there are also 3 Ivy Leagues within that area (2 within a 50 Miles radius of Center City).
An 100 mile radius is pretty huge and for Boston would mean taking up all of Rhode Island and a fat chunk of New Hampshire, Western Mass and Eastern Connecticut. Boston (or any of the northeast corridor cities) is going to net higher number of colleges and universities with such a large radius than SF would.
The Bay Area and Boston both do well in terms of the two top colleges they have (though Berkeley undergrad students, especially those from in-state, are surprisingly disappointing) are pretty evenly matched, but after that Boston wins out on most fronts with many other still prestigious colleges within its metro (and an additional Ivy and a contender for best art school in the nation if you include Providence which is in its CSA) as well as the strongest collection of liberal arts colleges in the US alongside LA and Philadelphia.
An 100 mile radius is pretty huge and for Boston would mean taking up all of Rhode Island and a fat chunk of New Hampshire, Western Mass and Eastern Connecticut. Boston (or any of the northeast corridor cities) is going to net higher number of colleges and universities with such a large radius than SF would.
The Bay Area and Boston both do well in terms of the two top colleges they have (though Berkeley undergrad students, especially those from in-state, are surprisingly disappointing) are pretty evenly matched, but after that Boston wins out on most fronts with many other still prestigious colleges within its metro (and an additional Ivy and a contender for best art school in the nation if you include Providence which is in its CSA) as well as the strongest collection of liberal arts colleges in the US alongside LA and Philadelphia.
Well, Im not really making a judgement about which area has more or less, I am simply reporting findings.
On the other hand, I like the 100-mile radius comparison for these 2 generally speaking as they are similarly influential over that distance, San Francisco is much more influential tho past the 100-mile mark tho but that's besides the point.
I think both of these cities are wonderful. Both are urban and have very interesting streetscapes, residential architecture etc.. I prefer the history and cultural importance of Boston more than S.F - but give S.F a slight nod for being an established gay city and a better climate to my liking + beautiful natural setting. S.F also seems more cosmopolitan and international compared to Boston imo. So overall S.F but certainly not by much.
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