Rochester Institute of Technology

Rochester Institute of Technology is a private institution that was founded in 1829. It has a total undergraduate enrollment of 13,940 (fall 2022), and the campus size is 1,300 acres. It utilizes a semester-based academic calendar. Rochester Institute of Technology's ranking in the 2024 edition of Best Colleges is National Universities, #98. Its tuition and fees are $57,016.

Rochester Institute of Technology is known for its engineering, computing and technology programs, but it offers liberal arts, business, and art and design programs as well. RIT offers more than 120 bachelor’s programs and a few online programs that include degree and certificate options. Areas of study include new media design, management information systems, photographic sciences, industrial design, civil engineering technology, and web and mobile computing. Students have the option of completing one of 30 combined accelerated pathways, which allows them to earn both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in as little as five years.

An important part of an RIT education is its cooperative education, or co-op, program. Students gain hands-on experience working in full-time, typically paid positions in a variety of settings, from large companies to startups and nonprofits. A majority of RIT undergraduate programs require co-op completion. Students interested in studying abroad can choose from more than 600 programs in 60 countries, including those at RIT’s global campuses in China, Croatia, Dubai and Kosovo.

The university is also home to the National Technical Institute for the Deaf, created by Congress in 1965 to provide technical and professional education for deaf students and students who are hard of hearing. More than 1,100 students with hearing loss live, study and work alongside hearing students on the RIT campus.

There are more than 300 student organizations at RIT, including fraternities and sororities. Freshmen are guaranteed university housing, and about half of all students live in college-affiliated housing. Students can cheer on the Tigers at Division I men’s and women’s hockey games and 22 Division III athletic programs.

Notable graduates of RIT include Clayton Turner, director of NASA’s Langley Research Center; John Resig, chief software architect at Khan Academy and creator of the jQuery JavaScript library; and Kim VanGelder, chief information officer of Eastman Kodak Company.