The University of Illinois at Chicago, often abbreviated UIC, is a state supported public university. This school is a member of the general University of Illinois system and is the largest university in all of Chicago with over 25,000 students spread over 15 colleges. This includes the largest medical school in the entire United States, and this school is also renowned for its research, which totals over $300 million a year.

The University of Illinois at Chicago is actually relatively new as a school, as it was technically founded only in 1982. UIC was the result of a merger between two different universities. The University of Illinois at the Medical center and the University of Illinois at the Chicago Circle, combined to form UIC. Parts of these original schools existed as far back as 1858. UIC offers more than just medical research and medical degrees, offering a wide variety of areas of study that includes 74 bachelor degrees, 77 masters degrees, and 60 doctoral degrees.

The University of Illinois Chicago campus is located in the Little Italy/University Village neighborhoods in Chicago. This neighborhood is a richly diverse area that thrives off the large population of college students, and vice versa. The majority of students don't live on campus, but commute, but there are a large number of students who still live in the area, around 5,000, and there are more residence halls being built to allow even more students to live on campus if they so choose.

One of the more interesting points of the University of Illinois Chicago campus is that it is known as one of the nation's most diverse campuses. There is no racial or ethnic group that makes up a majority of students. About forty percent of the students are Caucasian, a quarter are Asian American, fifteen percent are Hispanic, ten percent are African-American and almost seven percent are exchange students. This diversity is the type of cultural plus that many universities across the nation can only envy.