FOUNDED BY THE STATE in 1883, The University of Texas at Austin (UT) offers top national programs across eighteen colleges and schools in the sciences, arts, humanities, and professions. It is the flagship university of the statewide University of Texas System.
A member of the prestigious Association of American Universities since 1929, UT attracts about $800 million annually for research. Modeling done by molecular biologist Jason McLellan was critical to the development of all mRNA-based vaccines against Covid-19. Through a succession of large grants from the National Science Foundation, UT has built a series of the fastest supercomputers for open research in the world.
In addition to its 431-acre main campus near downtown Austin, UT extends to the J. J. Pickle Research Campus in north Austin, the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in south Austin, the McDonald Observatory in West Texas, the Marine Science Institute in Port Aransas, and several cultural and historic sites across the state.
The university’s holdings comprise more than 170 million objects, including a Gutenberg Bible and other rare books, manuscripts, photographs, artworks, and artifacts from natural history to pop culture that reside in eight museums and seventeen libraries. The Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library was the first presidential library to be located on a college campus.
UT student athletes, who will switch from the Big XII Conference to the Southeast Conference in 2025, have won more than sixty national championships and 153 Olympic medals, and the Texas Longhorn football team plays in the eighth-largest stadium in America, the 100,000-seat Darrell K Royal–Texas Memorial Stadium.
Texas alumni include founders or co-founders of Dell Computers, American Airlines, DreamWorks, 7-Eleven, National Instruments, CarMax, Clear Channel Communications, and La Quinta. Well-known alumni include Matthew McConaughey, Kevin Durant, Laura Bush, Jenna Bush Hager, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Marcia Gay Harden, James Baker, Robert Rodriguez, Wes Anderson, Bill Moyers, and Walter Cronkite.
