With 334 fields of study that take students toward their bachelors, masters, or doctoral degrees, over 36,000 students, and class sizes of up to 500, you might expect life at the University of Arizona (or "U of A" or just "Arizona") to feel more similar to a commuter campus than a genuine student community. On the contrary, most of the student body find the University of Arizona’s size to be just right, being big enough to foster a great amount of school pride (especially in the areas of American football and basketball), but small enough to feel like a lively student society. That said, it might be appropriate to mention the university’s Greek system—a highly visible, close-knit collection of houses—does more than its fair share of facilitating student social life.

Adding to the University of Arizona’s solid social repertoire are its current academic rankings among American universities, of which it holds many. In 2010, the school’s McGuire Entrepreneurship program ranked number one in the US by both The Princeton Review and Entrepreneur Magazine. Its MBA program has ranked among the top 50 American programs for 11 straight years, and a number of other programs at the University of Arizona were rated among the nation’s top 25 by the U.S. News & World Report in 2010.