Minneapolis - Education

Education

Minneapolis Public Schools enroll 36,370 students in public primary and secondary schools. The district administers about one hundred public schools including forty-five elementary schools, seven middle schools, seven high schools, eight special education schools, eight alternative schools, nineteen contract alternative schools, and five charter schools. With authority granted by the state legislature, the school board makes policy, selects the superintendent, and oversees the district's budget, curriculum, personnel, and facilities. Students speak ninety different languages at home and most school communications are printed in English, Hmong, Spanish, and Somali. About 44% of students in the Minneapolis Public School system graduate, which ranks the city the 6th worst out of the nation's 50 largest cities. Some students attend public schools in other school districts chosen by their families under Minnesota's open enrollment statute. Besides public schools, the city is home to more than twenty private schools and academies and about twenty additional charter schools.

Minneapolis' collegiate scene is dominated by the main campus of the University of Minnesota where more than 50,000 undergraduate, graduate, and professional students attend twenty colleges, schools, and institutes. The graduate school programs ranked highest in 2007 were counseling and personnel services, chemical engineering, psychology, macroeconomics, applied mathematics and non-profit management. A Big Ten school and home of the Golden Gophers, the U of M is the fourth largest campus in the U.S. in terms of enrollment.

Augsburg College, Minneapolis College of Art and Design, and North Central University are private four-year colleges. Minneapolis Community and Technical College, the private Dunwoody College of Technology, Globe University/Minnesota School of Business, and Art Institutes International Minnesota provide career training. St. Mary's University of Minnesota has a Twin Cities campus for its graduate and professional programs. Capella University, Minnesota School of Professional Psychology, and Walden University are headquartered in Minneapolis and some others including the public four-year Metropolitan State University and the private four-year University of St. Thomas have campuses there.

The Hennepin County Library system began to operate the city's public libraries in 2008. The Minneapolis Public Library, founded by T. B. Walker in 1885, faced a severe budget shortfall for 2007, and was forced to temporarily close three of its neighborhood libraries. The new downtown Central Library designed by César Pelli opened in 2006. Ten special collections hold over 25,000 books and resources for researchers, including the Minneapolis Collection and the Minneapolis Photo Collection. At recent count 1,696,453 items in the system are used annually and the library answers over 500,000 research and fact-finding questions each year.