Colorado School of Mines

Colorado School of Mines is a public institution that was founded in 1874. It has a total undergraduate enrollment of 5,733 (fall 2022), its setting is suburban, and the campus size is 500 acres. It utilizes a semester-based academic calendar. Colorado School of Mines' ranking in the 2024 edition of Best Colleges is National Universities, #76. Its in-state tuition and fees are $20,040; out-of-state tuition and fees are $42,120.

For students who want to work in the sciences, opportunities abound at the Colorado School of Mines. A public engineering and applied sciences school in Golden, Colorado, Mines has 14 academic departments, including Mechanical Engineering and Geophysics. The school also offers courses in the Liberal Arts & International Studies and Economics & Business departments. When students aren’t studying, the school’s location is ideal for outdoor recreation. Golden is 13 miles from the state capital of Denver and lies in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, where students can bike, hike and climb. The campus also has a climbing wall for students to test their skills before attempting the Rockies. Cold-weather sports fans can partake in the annual Winter Carnival, a student-run affair packed with skiing and snowboarding at a local resort. The Mines sports teams, known as the Orediggers, compete in the NCAA Division II Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference, which is mostly made up of other teams from Colorado. The school mascot is Blaster the burro, and a giant "M" emblazoned onto nearby Mount Zion signifies the school spirit. There are more than 140 student clubs and organizations, including seven fraternities and three sororities. First-year students are required to live on campus. Even the student newspaper, The Oredigger, is decidedly science based; sections include weekly roundups of new discoveries and a Geek of the Week feature.

Research opportunities abound for undergraduate and graduate students at the Renewable Energy Materials Research Science and Engineering Center and the Unconventional Natural Gas and Oil Institute, two on-campus powerhouses for energy innovation. The school campus is also home to a geology museum, where admission is free and students can check out displays from moon rocks to fossilized dinosaur tracks. Mines alumni garner some of the highest-paid starting salaries in the country, and graduates have gone on to excel as engineers, scientists and entrepreneurs. Notable alumni include Andrew Swiger, senior vice president and principal financial officer of ExxonMobil, and Harold M. Korell, executive chairman of the board of Southwestern Energy.