page_title: Phoenix, Arizona
section_title: Post-secondary education
hierarchical_section_title: Phoenix, Arizona / Education / Post-secondary education
caption_attribution_description: English: The historic Thunderbird Control Tower was built in 1941 and served as the Air Control Tower and Officers' quarters during the operation of the Thunderbird 1 Army Air Field, in Glendale, Arizona, where American, British, Canadian and Chinese pilots trained during WWII. The air field was deactivated in 1945 and is now occupied by the Thunderbird School of Global Management which is located southeast of the intersection of West Greenway Road &amp; North 59th Avenue in Glendale, Arizona.
context_page_description: Phoenix is the capital and most populous city in Arizona, with 1,680,992 people. It is also the fifth most populous city in the United States along with being the largest state capital by population, and the only state capital with a population of more than one million residents.
  Phoenix is the anchor of the Phoenix metropolitan area, also known as the Valley of the Sun, which in turn is part of the Salt River Valley. The metropolitan area is the 11th largest by population in the United States, with approximately 4.73 million people as of 2017. Phoenix is the seat of Maricopa County and the largest city in the state at 517.9 square miles, more than twice the size of Tucson and one of the largest cities in the United States.
  Phoenix was settled in 1867 as an agricultural community near the confluence of the Salt and Gila Rivers and was incorporated as a city in 1881. It became the capital of Arizona Territory in 1889. It is in the northeastern reaches of the Sonoran Desert and has a hot desert climate.
context_section_description: Arizona State University is the region's largest institution of higher education. While its main campus is in Tempe, ASU also has campuses in northwest Phoenix (ASU West Campus), downtown Phoenix (ASU Downtown Campus), Mesa (ASU Polytechnic Campus), and Glendale (Thunderbird School of Global Management). ASU is one of the largest public universities in the U.S., with a 2012 enrollment of 72,254.
  An independent, LCME accredited, four-year medical school of the University of Arizona College of Medicine is near ASU's downtown Phoenix campus. There is also a small satellite Phoenix Biomedical Campus for Northern Arizona University (based in Flagstaff).
  The Maricopa County Community College District includes ten community colleges and two skills centers throughout Maricopa County, providing adult education and job training. Phoenix College, part of the district, was founded in 1920 and is the oldest community college in Arizona and one of the oldest in the country.
  The city is also home to many other institutions of higher learning. Notable institutions include: Barrow Neurological Institute, the world's largest neurological disease treatment and research institution; Grand Canyon University, a private Christian university initially founded in 1949 as a non-profit school, it now operates as a for-profit institution; the University of Phoenix is the nation's largest for-profit university with over 300,000 students at campuses throughout North America, as well as online; and the Arizona Summit Law School, a private, for-profit law school in downtown Phoenix.
caption: Thunderbird control tower-Thunderbird School of Global Management
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