Education

Fairfax County's public school system includes the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, an award-winning magnet school. Nineteen of the region's schools appear in the top 200 of Newsweek's America's Top Public High Schools, which excludes schools such as Thomas Jefferson for having selective admissions. In comparison, Washington, Maryland, and the rest of Virginia have 10 schools between them in the top 200.

Although Northern Virginia contains a large portion of the Commonwealth's population, there are only a handful of colleges and universities in the region. The largest and most well-known is George Mason University in Fairfax, the largest university in Virginia.

Other higher education institutions include Northern Virginia Community College (colloquially known as NOVA) in Annandale (with several branch campuses throughout Northern Virginia), and Marymount University in north Arlington. In addition, the University of Virginia and Virginia Tech maintain a Center in Falls Church, and George Washington University has a campus in Loudoun County. Virginia Commonwealth University Health Systems has a satellite campus in Fairfax at the INOVA healthcare system.