North Carolina State University was founded with a purpose: to create economic, societal and intellectual prosperity for the people of North Carolina and the nation. What began as a land-grant institution teaching the agricultural and mechanical arts is now a preeminent research enterprise where world-leading faculty provide an unparalleled experiential education to high-performing students from around the globe. NC State University’s 12 colleges comprise 68 departments and programs offering more than 300 undergraduate and graduate degrees, as well as minors, certificates and other courses of study, across all major academic disciplines. The university’s 2,090-acre principal campuses are located in Raleigh, a city consistently rated among the best places to work and live in the country. Raleigh is one of the cornerstones of the state’s vibrant Research Triangle region, where industry leaders such as NC State partners SAS, Cisco, IBM, GlaxoSmithKline and Lenovo have created a high-tech hot spot. NC State’s pioneering research campus, Centennial Campus, houses more than 70 corporate, government and nonprofit partners who work side by side with dozens of NC State research and academic units. Centennial Campus is also home to the ultramodern James B. Hunt Jr. Library, winner of the prestigious Stanford Prize for Innovation in Research Libraries and one of the most technologically advanced learning and collaboration spaces in the world. NC State’s groundbreaking innovations in science and technology have led the federal government to select the university to lead some of the nation’s most ambitious research partnerships, including an institute creating the next generation of power electronics, a laboratory advancing the science of big data analysis, and a consortium fighting the illegal proliferation of nuclear weapons. NC State is the only university in the country leading two of the National Science Foundation’s Engineering Research Centers — one remaking the nation’s electrical grid, and the other developing self-powered health monitors that use nanotechnology. In addition, NC State was the first university in North America to establish an IBM Q Hub as part of the global IBM Q Network, a collaborative effort to advance quantum computing. NC State is a national leader in giving students the opportunity to learn how to solve real-world problems, so it’s no wonder that Princeton Review and Entrepreneur recognized the university as one of the nation’s best for undergraduate entrepreneurship. NC State alumni also enjoy the highest starting salaries among the state’s public university graduates, and they graduate with below-average debt. Year after year, NC State is nationally ranked as one of the best values in higher education for its combination of high academic standards, generous financial aid and affordable tuition. The university's programs in honors education, living-and-learning communities, study abroad, cooperative education and service learning give students boundless opportunities to develop the personal and professional skills they need to put knowledge into practice throughout their lives. For more information about NC State, visit ncsu.edu/about/rankings/.