Looking for a place where the outdoor adventures are as rugged and extreme as the academics? Love snow and surf and all the sports that come with it? Northern Michigan University in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and on the Lake Superior shore in Marquette, is your place. One of Northern Michigan’s two universities (the other being Finlandia), Northern Michigan University has a stack of accolades as tall as Marquette Mountain—the ski and snowboard hill, in its backyard.
Here’re the stats:
- Student population: 9,200
- Degree program: 180
- Graduate programs: 18
What are the acclaimed programs? Art and design, business, computer science, education, English and nursing.
Special programs? Northern Michigan is the only university in the United States to offer five national Accrediting Agency for Clinical Laboratory Science accredited programs, and one of three universities nationwide with both diagnostic molecular science and cytogenetics programs. Know too that  NMU is one of only two Michigan universities to have an entrepreneurship major. It also has one of the few programs in the country for both ski management and wildland firefighting.
What is campus life like? Located on the edge of the uber-cool (take that literally and figuratively) city of Marquette, the campus is close to the gamut of eateries and nightlife. Also located minutes from Lake Superior, find kayaking, surfing and a multitude of extreme sports.