Naperville, Illinois in the context of DuPage County, Illinois

Shimer Great Books School (/ˈʃaɪmər/ SHY-mər) is a Great Books college that is part of North Central College in Naperville, Illinois. Prior to 2017, Shimer was an independent, accredited college on the south side of Chicago, originally founded in 1853.

Originally founded as the Mount Carroll Seminary in Mount Carroll, Illinois in 1853, it became affiliated with the University of Chicago in 1896 and was renamed the Frances Shimer Academy after founder Frances Wood Shimer. It was renamed Shimer College in 1950, when it began offering a four-year curriculum based on the Hutchins Plan of the University of Chicago. After the University of Chicago parted with both Shimer and the Hutchins Plan in 1958, Shimer continued to use a version of that curriculum. The college relocated to Waukegan in 1978 and to Chicago in 2006. In 2017, it was acquired by North Central College which established the Shimer Great Books School to continue offering its curriculum.

The College of DuPage (COD) is a public community college with its main campus in Glen Ellyn, Illinois, and satellite campuses at Addison, Carol Stream, Naperville, and Westmont, Illinois, United States. The college serves more than 20,000 students residing in Illinois's Community College District 502.

North Central College is a private college in Naperville, Illinois. It is affiliated with the United Methodist Church and has 73 undergraduate majors of study, 17 minors, 25 graduate programs, and 4 certificate programs offered by four undergraduate colleges/schools (College of Arts and Sciences, School of Business and Entrepreneurship, School of Education and Health Sciences, Shimer Great Books School) and one School of Graduate and Professional Studies.

Northern Illinois University (NIU) is a public research university in DeKalb, Illinois, United States. It was founded as "Northern Illinois State Normal School" in 1895 by Illinois Governor John P. Altgeld, initially to provide the state with college-educated teachers. In addition to the main campus in DeKalb, it has satellite centers in Chicago, Naperville, Rockford, and Oregon, Illinois.

The university is composed of seven degree-granting colleges and has a student body of approximately 16,000. NIU is one of seven public universities in Illinois that compete in NCAA Division I. The athletic teams are known as the Huskies and compete in the Mid-American Conference (MAC).