Marquette ranked 7th smartest city in Michigan, linked to community

MARQUETTE — In the past week, The city of Marquette received a pretty decent honor, which sets it apart from other cities in the U.P.

Marquette was ranked the seventh smartest city in the state of Michigan. According to Zippia, a website geared to help college graduates find work, 36% of adults living in Marquette had received a bachelor’s degree. Many of the alumni from Northern Michigan University choose to live here.

“We hear from our graduate all the time: ‘I want to stay in Marquette,'” said Derek Hall, spokesperson for Northern Michigan University.

“Our community takes a lot of pride in our education. They take a lot of pride in what we do as Yoopers, so to speak,” said Marquette High School Principal Jon Young. “That shows within our education, it shows within our community, and with that sense of pride, sense of community, it’s a great place to be. We’ve got a lot of great things going on in Marquette, and it’s just another example of that.”

The city of Marquette also boasts a high school dropout rate of near zero percent. The staff at Marquette High must be doing something right.

“Most importantly probably the first thing is creating a good, positive school environment and culture. And we’re fortunate to have an outstanding staff of teachers, great support staff, and fantastic students. And then you’ve got a community behind it, who is a smart community, who definitely supports education, and that’s an important thing,” said Young.

“A tip of the hat to the school district, to have a near zero dropout rate, that’s impressive. We are happy to partner with the school district and the schools here locally to try to help them. That’s a big part of our success too,” said Hall.

Not to mention the uniqueness of the city of Marquette. It’s the only city not in Metro Detroit on that top ten list.

“For us, here in Marquette, what is the big attraction? Just look out the window; our place, the community, the lack of traffic, how friendly everyone is. It’s a great place to live. It’s just a big attraction,” said Hall. “I think it’s really cool that we’re the one place that’s not next to Detroit on that list. It says a lot about our community and the people that live here.”