The nation’s academic, political, and media elites often give the impression that nearly everything important in America comes out of savvy thinking and actions from enlightened communities on the East and West Coasts, with little of consequence originating in the “flyover country” in between, although the Trump victory of 2024 showed some important shortcomings of that perspective.

We are often led to believe that America’s leaders are largely developed in coastal enclaves, often largely hatched in elite universities near Boston (led by Harvard and M.I.T.) or the San Francisco Bay region (led by Stanford and University of California-Berkeley). This perception can be effectively attacked on several levels, but here I would argue that Chicago—the de facto capital of flyover country—is a third academic powerhouse city.

While Harvard and M.I.T. are both at the top of the top dozen colleges ranked by U.S. News in their influential rankings, in the Bay region, Berkeley falls short (17th), but both Northwestern (tied for 6th) and Chicago (tied for 11th) make it. And within a few hours’ drive of either of those Windy City campuses are such highly respected schools as Notre Dame, Washington University in St. Louis, and the University of Michigan—all solidly within the top 25 in U.S. News’ assessment. There is a good deal of consequential wisdom emanating more than 50 miles from the Atlantic or Pacific Oceans.

Located only about 20 miles apart geographically and both founded in the 19th century, the University of Chicago and Northwestern are decidedly different schools in other dimensions. Chicago has long been considered a school for brainy nerds with a historically distinctive classical curriculum—but, horrors of horrors, no football team!

Northwestern, by contrast, is far more conventional, more typical of highly competitive private schools (full disclosure: I am a Northwestern graduate), perhaps with more social party animals than nerds, and a member of the powerful Big Ten Athletic Conference. The University of Chicago is located in the gritty relatively high-crime South Side of Chicago, whereas Northwestern is in relatively upscale suburban Evanston (nearby is the decidedly posh home featured in the movie Home Alone).

The University of Chicago is located in an overwhelmingly liberal part of town, with Barack Obama being the most famous former professor. Yet Chicago has become a national leader in endorsing institutional neutrality, with the school itself steadfastly not taking positions on issues of the day even as individual Chicago students and faculty utter all sorts of provocative thoughts. As two University of Chicago scholars, Tony Banout and Tom Ginsburg put it recently: “The centrality of scholarly merit, institutional neutrality, and an insistence on uninhibited free inquiry and expression is in the University of Chicago’s founding DNA.”

Known for its “Chicago Principles,” Chicago is ranked a respectable 43rd out of over 250 schools surveyed by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) in its college free speech rankings, “slightly above average,” but 5th among private schools, which are typically ranked well below public universities.

Northwestern is located on the historically more conservative North Shore. Yet Northwestern has gone Full-Woke. President Michael Schill not only tolerated the tents of pro-Palestinian demonstrations on the school’s pristine Deering Meadow for an extended period, but he also promised the protesters scholarships and visiting professorships for Palestinians if they would desist in their campus desecration—he bribed them into being nice, for which Northwestern is now under investigation for “antisemitic harassment” by the U.S. Department of Education.

Meanwhile, the Northwestern Law School, located in downtown Chicago, is facing a lawsuit for allegedly totally excluding from consideration white applicants for a professorship, including some very prestigious senior scholars from schools such as UCLA. Prediction: if the case goes to trial, Northwestern will lose.

Moreover, Northwestern ranks extremely low on the FIRE free speech rankings, coming in 238th out of 251 schools (“poor”). I know one extremely prominent Northwestern alum, a major benefactor and longtime member of its Board of Trustees, Ben Slivka, who has apparently been declared persona non grata by the institution for the high crime of being too outspoken.

Eight of the 10 lowest-ranked schools by FIRE are private schools from states bordering the Atlantic or Pacific Oceans, three of them in the Ivy League (Harvard comes in last). By contrast, nine of the top 10 ranked schools are such distinctly non-upscale flyover country public schools as Michigan Technological, Eastern Kentucky, and Mississippi State.

Flyover country, in short, is not without its virtues. Less than 110 million folks live in the nine Northeast states or the three major states bordering the Pacific Ocean that seemingly dominate our national university and media elites—twice as many live in the rest, mostly flyover, country. Virtually all of our national population growth between 2020 and 2024 occurred in flyover country—California and New York actually lost population, while Texas and Florida gained four million inhabitants.

Chicago is the leading city in the more vibrant flyover country part of our nation, and its top universities are highly consequential, albeit seemingly quite different in their paths to learning and discovery.