Purdue University College Portrait

Purdue University is ranked 23rd among the nation’s public universities by

U.S. News & World Report and is globally renowned for empowering student success, promoting field-defining research, and delivering real-world discovery to solve humanity’s grand challenges. Purdue has earned more than 20 top-ten rankings and more than 40 top-twenty rankings from national ranking agencies. Numerous luminaries have launched their careers at this Big Ten university, including Neil Armstrong and 22 other astronauts, C-SPAN founder/CEO Brian Lamb, Forbes' "100 Most Powerful Women" honoree Beth Brooke, legendary basketball coach John Wooden, the 2010 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, Ei-ichi Negishi, and 2009 World Food Prize Winner, Gebisa Ejeta. In 2011, Purdue ranked seventh nationally in SmartMoney magazine's college "payback" survey, which quantifies the long-term value of a college education. Purdue is listed among the Princeton Review's 150 "best value" colleges for 2012.

Boilermakers are students, faculty, staff and alumni who move the world forward in positive ways. To complement classroom work and homework, Purdue students – both undergraduate and graduate – have unmatched opportunities to perform leading-edge original research, serve internships, and enjoy experiential, real-word learning activities. Purdue discoveries address societal challenges at both the local and global level. State-of-the-art facilities and centers of innovation such as Discovery Park, the university's $350 million interdisciplinary research hub, and Purdue Research Park, a non-profit high-tech business incubator, draw researchers and entrepreneurs from all over the world to work at Purdue. In 2011, the university launched a ten-year (decadal) funding plan to decrease reliance on state funding and tuition. The plan’s first two initiatives include the creation of the Innovation and Commercialization Center and plans to move Purdue to a balanced trimester schedule. Purdue is dedicated to helping each student succeed and in 2011 celebrated first- and second-year retention rates at all-time highs of 90.2 percent and 82.5 percent, respectively. Students, faculty, and staff representing nearly 130 countries provide a rich mixture of culture and diversity to complement the university’s land-grant roots; Purdue has the second-highest international enrollment among public universities in the country. Students can choose from more than 15 residence halls in Purdue’s university housing system, explore more than 900 student organizations, sample everything from brick-oven pizza to Middle Eastern, Mediterranean, and African cuisine in Purdue’s award-winning dining courts, and enjoy on- and off-campus entertainment options from theatre to Big Ten sports.