Chicago is the large American city that students most often overlook, and the reason to look at it is arithmetic: it offers the scale of New York at a materially lower cost of living, on a lake, with a transport system that actually reaches where people live.
The city is where the skyscraper was invented, and architecture is the thing it is genuinely proud of rather than merely known for. The river running through the centre is lined with a century and a half of it, and the boat tours along it are the one tourist activity locals will also recommend. Millennium Park, the lakefront path and the Art Institute's front steps are all free or close to it.
Lake Michigan does more for daily life than the name suggests. The shoreline is public for miles — beaches, a continuous cycle and running path, and a skyline view from the water that is the city's best argument for itself. In summer the lakefront is where Chicago goes.
For a language learner, the city has a specific advantage: it is large and international without being a place where everyone is passing through. People live here, work here and stay, which means the English you hear is ordinary rather than performed for visitors, and the same faces recur in a neighbourhood the way they do in a much smaller town.
The winter is the trade and it is not a rumour — January and February are genuinely cold, with wind coming off the lake. The city is built for it and does not slow down, but plan your coat and choose your start month deliberately. Summer and early autumn are the reward: warm, long, and lived outdoors with a festival most weekends.
Food is the other thing the city does properly, and it is cheap enough to be part of student life rather than an occasional treat. The neighbourhoods are where it lives — Pilsen, Chinatown, Devon Avenue, Andersonville — and each of them is also a different accent to listen to.
Getting here is easy in a way that matters for a longer stay: O'Hare is one of the busiest airports in the world and connects directly to most of Europe, the Gulf and Türkiye, so visits home and visitors are not the ordeal they are from a smaller American city.
The cost is the other half of the argument. Chicago is expensive by most standards and inexpensive by the standards of New York, San Francisco or Boston — which is exactly why it belongs on a shortlist that already has those cities on it.
Studying here. Topstudy works with Kaplan Chicago, which offers General English, Semi-Intensive English and Intensive English. That covers a standard week, a middle option that leaves your afternoons for the city, and a full intensive load for students working towards an exam or a deadline.
Accommodation. Kaplan Chicago places students in the Student Residence and Student Apartments. A residence gives you your own room, a predictable monthly cost and other students in the building; a host family gives you more hours of English a day and is usually further out along the L, which in Chicago is a real train rather than a long drive.
Who it suits. Students who want a major American city without New York or California prices; anyone who would rather live somewhere than visit it; and students who can plan around a winter in exchange for a summer worth having.
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