FAQ: What are research universities and why should students care?

Defining a Research University
Research Universities are Large
Research Universities are Focused on Faculty Research
Best Research Opportunities
List of Research Universities in the United States

Defining a Research University

A research university is simply a type of university that conducts more research relative to other colleges and universities. American universities are defined as research universities by the Carnegie Classification of Doctoral Universities. A university is considered a Doctoral University if it

• awards at least 20 research/scholarship doctoral degrees
• or awards at least 30 professional practice doctoral degrees in at least two programs.

To meet the “High research activity” or “Very high research activity,” the Doctoral University must:

• award at least 20 research/scholarship doctoral degrees and
• had at least $5 million in total research expenditures.

If you define research universities as only those with “Very high research activity,” there are only 130 in the United States. These are pretty much the most recognizable names in higher education including private institutions such as:

• Stanford
• Harvard
• MIT
• Vanderbilt
• University of Chicago

There are actually more public research universities, 93, than private, 37, and they include:

• University of Michigan
• University of Wisconsin
• University of Minnesota
• University of Washington
• University of Texas

So research universities have doctoral level graduate students and a minimum amount of money spent on research. This research is often a major source of economic development in the surrounding region if not the state.

Research Universities are Large

In case you haven’t figured it out by now, research universities tend to be big. The average has just under 20,000 undergraduates with an average of over 30,000 students of all types. These universities will be divided into colleges that will have their own requirements for degrees and sometimes even admissions.

For example, Honors Colleges almost always have a separate application process on top of regular admissions. Students applying to a College of Performing/Fine Arts often have to provide a portfolio or audition. At some research universities, students must declare their majors at admissions to gain access to colleges in high demand such as engineering or computer science.

Undergraduates should expect lower division classes to be large. Think of the traditional large lecture hall. At one point the 800 students at the University of California Berkeley were encourage to view their Economics lecture class from satellite rooms because of overcrowding in the auditorium. Universities often offer students the opportunity to test out of introductory classes using AP, IB, or CLEP exams but not always. When considering a university, it’s a good idea for students to browse the course schedule to get an idea of what class size to expect.

By the time students reach their upper division classes, their major classes should become smaller allowing students better opportunities to get to know their professors. Any undergraduates at a research university looking for faculty recommendations should make an effort to get to know professors as early as possible so they can write a meaningful recommendation.

The vast majority of state flagship universities are research universities. They also tend to be the oldest public institutions in the state. Their age along with the size ensure an extensive alumni network that benefits the universities in terms of state funding and research opportunities. It also makes them very convenient places for businesses to recruit. One stop can yield a large crop of potential employees for business recruiters.

So why should families care when deciding which colleges to apply to?

After all, just because a university is spending money on research doesn’t mean it’s not spending it on students as well. In fact, according to the Integrated Postsecondary Education System (IPEDS) research universities have the highest average amount spent on Instruction per student among all the Carnegie Classifications. They also have the highest 4 year graduation rates. It’s no wonder research universities attract  some of the most highly qualified students to their campuses every year.

Research Universities are Focused on Faculty Research

But here’s the problem. All that extra money being spent on instruction isn’t going towards teaching undergraduates. It’s being used to pay for the graduate programs. Let’s face it, it cost a lot less to teach 500 students in a lecture hall than 5 students in a seminar room.  Undergraduates are subsidizing graduate education at research universities.

And let’s talk about who is going to be doing the teaching. Too often it’s not the Nobel Prize winners that they talk about in campus brochures. You’re going to need an awful lot of them if you’re going to be using them for undergraduate teaching, even if it’s just at the upper division level. This is why I recommend students take a hard look at course schedules to see who is actually teaching the classes.

While some undergraduates may actually have a course with a faculty star at some point in their four years on campus, they’re more likely to have classes taught by adjunct faculty or graduate students. How else are they ever going to learn to teach?

As for the high graduation rates? That’s something called “self-selection.” The students who are attending these universities would succeed no matter where they went. The research university has little to do with their academic success.

Best Research Opportunities?

Now I know that there are going to be people out there who believe that Research Universities are the ideal place for students to go who want to get involved in research. So it would seem. But at the very minimum, such students are going to be standing behind the graduate students in terms of opportunities.

According to the National Survey of Student Engagement, undergraduates at research universities don’t have any better of a chance at research opportunities than students at most other higher education institutions. The one exception is Liberal Arts Colleges (LAC). In 2019, 43% of seniors at LACs reported doing research with faculty compared to only 26% at research universities.

Of course, given the number of undergraduates at research universities, 26% is still a lot of students. And over the years, more Research Institutions have developed strong undergraduate research programs to make it easier for undergraduates even as freshman to participate in research projects.

In general, as state funding has been reduced, more research universities have been developing programs to keep undergraduates engaged and paying tuition. There are Honors Colleges, Learning Communities, and First Year Programs in addition to the usual advantages of large universities.

These are all positive developments for the quality of undergraduate education. However, high school students deciding which colleges to apply to should keep in mind that undergraduate teaching falls behind research and graduate education in terms of priorities at research universities.

List of Research Universities in the United States

Name	Type	State	Size (all students)	Full-time Under-grads	4 yr Grad Rate	% Admitted
Auburn University	Public	AL	30,460	22,626	51	81
The University of Alabama	Public	AL	38,100	29,188	50	83
University of Alabama at Birmingham	Public	AL	22,080	10,377	40	74
Arizona State University-Tempe	Public	AZ	53,286	41,349	49	86
University of Arizona	Public	AZ	44,577	28,993	47	85
University of Arkansas	Public	AR	27,559	20,492	49	77
California Institute of Technology	Private	CA	2,237	938	84	6
Stanford University	Private	CA	17,249	6,996	73	4
University of California-Berkeley	Public	CA	43,185	30,094	76	16
University of California-Davis	Public	CA	38,634	30,053	63	39
University of California-Irvine	Public	CA	36,908	29,774	69	27
University of California-Los Angeles	Public	CA	44,371	30,912	80	12
University of California-Riverside	Public	CA	25,547	21,614	56	57
University of California-San Diego	Public	CA	38,736	29,870	65	31
University of California-Santa Barbara	Public	CA	26,314	22,882	68	30
University of California-Santa Cruz	Public	CA	19,494	16,991	52	51
University of Southern California	Private	CA	48,321	19,537	78	11
Colorado State University-Fort Collins	Public	CO	33,426	22,179	45	81
University of Colorado Boulder	Public	CO	37,883	28,921	46	78
University of Colorado Denver/Anschutz Medical Campus	Public	CO	24,910	8,858	24	67
University of Connecticut	Public	CT	27,280	18,282	73	49
Yale University	Private	CT	13,609	6,092	88	6
University of Delaware	Public	DE	23,808	18,301	72	71
George Washington University	Private	DC	27,814	11,111	76	41
Georgetown University	Private	DC	19,593	7,062	91	14
Florida International University	Public	FL	58,711	28,116	34	58
Florida State University	Public	FL	42,450	29,943	68	36
University of Central Florida	Public	FL	69,402	42,747	44	44
University of Florida	Public	FL	52,407	32,219	67	37
University of Miami	Private	FL	17,811	10,742	73	27
University of South Florida-Main Campus	Public	FL	44,246	25,494	60	48
Emory University	Private	GA	14,415	7,047	82	16
Georgia Institute of Technology-Main Campus	Public	GA	36,302	14,368	46	21
Georgia State University	Public	GA	35,041	22,089	28	76
University of Georgia	Public	GA	38,920	28,057	65	45
University of Hawaii at Manoa	Public	HI	17,490	10,610	34	58
Northwestern University	Private	IL	22,448	8,248	84	9
University of Chicago	Private	IL	17,452	6,822	90	6
University of Illinois at Chicago	Public	IL	32,324	20,126	34	73
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign	Public	IL	51,605	32,755	70	59
Indiana University-Bloomington	Public	IN	43,260	32,091	67	78
Purdue University-Main Campus	Public	IN	45,500	32,520	58	60
University of Notre Dame	Private	IN	12,683	8,732	91	16
Iowa State University	Public	IA	33,372	26,596	47	92
University of Iowa	Public	IA	31,240	21,134	55	83
Kansas State University	Public	KS	21,719	15,489	37	95
University of Kansas	Public	KS	27,552	17,307	48	93
University of Kentucky	Public	KY	29,402	20,679	45	96
University of Louisville	Public	KY	21,670	11,578	37	69
Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College	Public	LA	31,756	22,727	41	75
Tulane University of Louisiana	Private	LA	12,923	7,262	77	13
Johns Hopkins University	Private	MD	27,079	5,756	87	11
University of Maryland-College Park	Public	MD	40,743	28,375	69	44
Boston College	Private	MA	14,747	9,703	90	27
Boston University	Private	MA	33,720	16,904	84	19
Brandeis University	Private	MA	5,825	3,688	81	30
Harvard University	Private	MA	31,655	7,145	85	5
Massachusetts Institute of Technology	Private	MA	11,520	4,485	87	7
Northeastern University	Private	MA	22,207	14,202	18
Tufts University	Private	MA	11,878	5,730	88	15
University of Massachusetts-Amherst	Public	MA	31,350	22,514	74	64
Michigan State University	Public	MI	49,809	35,650	56	71
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor	Public	MI	48,090	30,328	80	23
Wayne State University	Public	MI	26,824	13,056	20	73
University of Minnesota-Twin Cities	Public	MN	51,327	29,890	69	57
Mississippi State University	Public	MS	22,226	17,101	35	54
University of Mississippi	Public	MS	21,617	15,950	46	88
University of Southern Mississippi	Public	MS	14,133	9,623	28	97
University of Missouri-Columbia	Public	MO	30,014	20,782	48	81
Washington University in St Louis	Private	MO	16,191	7,118	89	14
Montana State University	Public	MT	16,692	12,398	27	82
University of Nebraska-Lincoln	Public	NE	25,390	19,045	41	78
University of Nevada-Las Vegas	Public	NV	31,171	19,629	17	81
University of Nevada-Reno	Public	NV	20,993	14,702	33	88
Dartmouth College	Private	NH	6,606	4,414	87	8
University of New Hampshire-Main Campus	Public	NH	14,788	11,993	68	84
New Jersey Institute of Technology	Public	NJ	11,518	6,859	37	73
Princeton University	Private	NJ	8,419	5,314	90	6
Rutgers University-New Brunswick	Public	NJ	50,173	34,350	65	61
University of New Mexico-Main Campus	Public	NM	22,729	12,651	29	94
Binghamton University	Public	NY	18,124	13,882	72	41
Columbia University in the City of New York	Private	NY	31,456	7,728	86	5
Cornell University	Private	NY	24,027	15,043	87	11
New York University	Private	NY	52,885	25,902	76	16
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute	Private	NY	7,528	6,241	66	47
Stony Brook University	Public	NY	26,814	16,655	59	44
SUNY at Albany	Public	NY	17,544	12,622	56	54
Syracuse University	Private	NY	22,850	14,664	72	44
University at Buffalo	Public	NY	31,923	20,387	59	61
University of Rochester	Private	NY	12,233	6,441	80	30
Duke University	Private	NC	16,766	6,583	88	8
North Carolina State University at Raleigh	Public	NC	36,304	22,856	57	45
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill	Public	NC	29,877	18,579	84	23
Case Western Reserve University	Private	OH	11,874	5,222	68	27
Ohio State University-Main Campus	Public	OH	61,391	42,604	62	54
University of Cincinnati-Main Campus	Public	OH	39,263	23,836	35	77
Oklahoma State University-Main Campus	Public	OK	24,079	17,235	41	70
University of Oklahoma-Norman Campus	Public	OK	28,079	18,938	44	80
Oregon State University	Public	OR	31,719	18,635	35	82
University of Oregon	Public	OR	22,517	17,377	56	82
Carnegie Mellon University	Private	PA	14,180	6,419	76	15
Drexel University	Private	PA	24,205	13,873	26	75
Pennsylvania State University-Main Campus	Public	PA	91,427	66,206	53	76
Temple University	Public	PA	38,794	26,141	52	60
University of Pennsylvania	Private	PA	26,675	10,447	86	8
University of Pittsburgh-Pittsburgh Campus	Public	PA	32,686	18,474	65	57
Brown University	Private	RI	10,333	6,802	83	7
Clemson University	Public	SC	25,822	19,387	60	51
University of South Carolina-Columbia	Public	SC	35,364	26,402	64	69
The University of Tennessee-Knoxville	Public	TN	29,460	22,126	52	79
Vanderbilt University	Private	TN	13,131	6,817	88	9
Rice University	Private	TX	7,282	3,949	84	9
Texas A & M University-College Station	Public	TX	68,726	47,874	55	58
Texas Tech University	Public	TX	38,742	27,949	36	69
The University of Texas at Arlington	Public	TX	48,635	19,499	26	83
The University of Texas at Austin	Public	TX	51,090	37,352	66	32
The University of Texas at Dallas	Public	TX	29,543	17,847	52	79
The University of Texas at El Paso	Public	TX	25,177	13,928	13	100
University of Houston	Public	TX	46,148	28,176	32	65
University of North Texas	Public	TX	39,336	26,049	35	74
University of Utah	Public	UT	32,852	18,609	33	62
George Mason University	Public	VA	37,863	21,596	50	87
University of Virginia-Main Campus	Public	VA	25,012	16,330	89	24
Virginia Commonwealth University	Public	VA	29,757	19,868	45	87
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University	Public	VA	36,383	28,714	65	70
University of Washington-Seattle Campus	Public	WA	47,576	29,482	66	52
Washington State University	Public	WA	31,607	23,195	37	76
West Virginia University	Public	WV	26,839	19,399	39	84
University of Wisconsin-Madison	Public	WI	44,257	30,131	62	54
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee	Public	WI	25,731	17,519	19	77