<p>One of the best academic values in the nation, Temple U, is smack in the middle of the hellhole that is North Philadelphia. So it doesn’t have to be about the prestige. I went to Penn which I think was marginally safer. True store: a friend of mine there had skin taken off of his nose by a city bus as it rounded the corner he was standing at. For me becoming a little more street-smart was just one more part of the college experience.</p>