About Texas Tech
Texas Tech University
The flagship institution of the Texas Tech University System, Texas Tech University is a public, state-designated national research university that is comprehensive in scope. It is among the highest level of Carnegie-classified (Highest Research University) doctoral granting universities, one of 115 U.S. institutions with this designation. Texas Tech University’s campus covers 1,839 acres and is comprised of 10 colleges, a graduate school and law school.
Even with an enrollment approaching 36,000, the University prides itself on retaining the feel of a smaller institution where students boast of one-on-one interaction with top faculty. The university strives to foster an environment that celebrates student accomplishment above all else. Texas Tech University is large enough to provide the best in facilities and academics, but small enough to focus on each student individually, with a commitment to enhancing the cultural and economic development of the community, state, nation and world. Texas Tech University students come from almost every county in Texas, all 50 states and more than 100 foreign countries. The campus is a rich cultural asset featuring Spanish Renaissance architecture, one of the nation’s leading sites of public art and a vital array of great musical and theatrical offerings.
The university offers more than 100 undergraduate, over 100 masters and 50 doctoral degree programs. The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching describes the Texas Tech undergraduate profile as full-time, four-year, selective, higher transfer-in, while labeling the undergraduate program as “professions plus arts and sciences with high graduate coexistence.” The graduate program is defined as comprehensive with doctoral programs.
Texas Tech University is the first institution in Texas to be recognized by the Carnegie Foundation through its Community Engagement Classification, which acknowledges the university’s historic commitment to research and services that address the needs of the community, state, nation and world. In 2011, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board approved major revisions to the rules applying to curriculum for Texas public institutions of higher education, enabling Texas Tech to launch a new university core curriculum for 2014-2015. Accreditation, which was recently affirmed, is provided by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges to award baccalaureate, masters, doctoral degrees and certificates, and the university's accreditation was reaffirmed in December 2015. Numerous departments or programs also hold accreditation from professional associations.
The most popular majors are in the business, engineering, and health related disciplines. Texas Tech University is consistently recognized as a top institution for military veterans and their families. Over 70 percent of the university’s students receive financial aid including scholarships, grants, federal work study and loans, with approximately $200 million disbursed annually. Students perform at a high academic level as demonstrated by the awarding of a Phi Beta Kappa chapter in the last decade. Graduate and undergraduate students also win prestigious, nationally competitive scholarships such as the William J. Fulbright and Barry M. Goldwater Scholarships. The university is making progress towards its goal of being designated as a Hispanic Serving Institution, with 23 percent of its undergraduate student population in 2015 from this group.