College Park , Maryland , United States
Total Students
National Ranking
Founded in 1856, the University of Maryland is a public research university and the largest university in the Washington Metropolitan Area. The university has close funding and institutional links to the capital – receiving research funding from the National Institutes of Health, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa), the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the Department of Homeland Security.
It belongs to the Big Ten Conference, one of the oldest collegiate athletic conferences in the United States that includes the flagship public university in each of 11 states stretching from New Jersey to Nebraska. The membership also places the university within the Committee of Institutional Cooperation, an academic consortium of Big Ten universities and the University of Chicago, whose members generated more than $10 billion in research expenditure in 2012.
The 1,250 acre campus, which started out as the 428 acres of an old sugar plantation, has redbrick Georgian buildings, a large central lawn called McKeldin Mall, and enough plants and trees to be designated a botanical garden. Morrill Hall, built in the 1890s, is the oldest structure still in use today.
Almost 40,000 students on one of either 100 undergraduate majors and 120 graduate programmes join a number of notable alumni, including House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, Google co-founder Sergey Brin, The Muppets creator Jim Henson, The Wire creator David Simon and Seinfeld co-creator Larry David.
Nobel prizewinners are also among the staff, with John C. Mather, a Nasa researcher and physics professor, sharing the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2006 and Thomas C. Schelling sharing the Nobel Prize for Economics in 2005 – with two more faculty staff and two alumni being awarded in the past century.
The college’s future was not always secured, and indeed the institution went bankrupt from 1864 to 1866 before reopening a year later with 11 students. The first woman earned her bachelor’s degree in 1919, and the first African American student graduated in 1952.
The University of Maryland also hosts one of the largest communities of language scientists in North America, including more than 200 faculty, researchers and graduate students, who collectively comprise the Maryland Language Science Center.
Academics
40,700+ students
12 schools and colleges
102 undergraduate majors, 115 master's programs and 84 doctoral programs
300+ study abroad destinations
29 living-learning programs
9 million titles in 8 libraries and online
No. 20 public research institution—U.S. News & World Report
No. 14 among Forbes’ Top Public Colleges
No. 15 among U.S. public institutions ranked as Best Global Schools by U.S. News & World Report
No. 56 in Jiao Tong University’s Academic Ranking of World Universities
No. 10 in Kiplinger’s Personal Finance magazine’s 100 Best Values in Public Colleges for in-state students
No. 6 overall and No. 3 among public universities for undergraduate entrepreneurship—The Princeton Review/Entrepreneurship magazine
14 Fulbright scholars in 2019-20; 50+ students and scholars accepted Fulbright grants in last 5 years
Research
$1.096 billion combined research expenditures in FY19 with the University of Maryland, Baltimore
No. 8 among public institutions for research and development spending and No. 14 overall in the National Science Foundation's Higher Education Research and Development Survey
Student Life
800+ student clubs
Students from 50 states and 105 countries
No. 3 among public universities and No. 8 in the nation for LGBTQ+ students—Campus Pride and BestColleges.com
No. 32 producer of minority graduates with bachelor’s degrees—Diverse: Issues in Higher Education
Faculty
4,264 faculty members
58 members of the national academies
2 Nobel laureates
4 Pulitzer Prize winners
1 Emmy winner and 1 Tony winner
Additional Facts
Founded in 1856
1,340-acre campus
Nearly 400,000 alums