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Education Sixteen public school systems serve the four-county MSA. Some 150,000 students attend approximately 300 public and 50 private schools. There are 30 library systems in the area, including the Birmingham Public Library System, the largest system in the southeast with more than three million volumes and 19 branches. In the metro area, 73% of the population are high school graduates while 43% of the population has a post-high school education. The Birmingham region has many excellent schools. The systems for the suburbs of Homewood, Hoover, Mountain Brook and Vestavia Hills all consistently score much higher than average on the Stanford Achievement Test, while the highest scoring individual school in the state was Christian Alternative School in the Birmingham Public School System. Newsweek crowned the Alabama School of Fine Arts, located in downtown Birmingham, as the 10th highest ranked school and Mountain Brook High School 99 out of 472 schools nationwide. The Alabama School of Fine Arts is one of the nation's three state-supported secondary schools for students with special artistic gifts. Birmingham's EPIC School, an alternative elementary school, brings gifted, normal and handicapped students together in a unique learning environment. The Shades Valley Learning Center, an alternative school in the Jefferson County system, and Hoover High School are the only schools in central Alabama that offer the International Baccalaureate diploma. Higher education employs nearly 20,000 in the metropolitan area and generates an economic impact of more than $1 billion annually. Seven universities and collages, seven community/junior colleges, five degree-granting technical schools, three law schools, and the UAB medical, dental, and other specialized schools offer multiple educational opportunities to the area's work force. As the area's largest employer, the University of Alabama at Birmingham contributes to the economic impact of higher education with 15,833 employees, total annual budget of $1.1 billion and 15,850 students, UAB offers 140 undergraduate and graduate degrees. Birmingham-Southern College has been cited by numerous national publications as the best among Southern liberal arts colleges and as one of the best buys in higher education. Stanford University, Alabama's largest independent college, has also received national recognition as one of the most selective universities in America, and its Cumberland School of Law continuously ranks among the best. |