University of Texas at Dallas

The University of Texas at Dallas (also known as UT Dallas or UTD) is a public research university located in Richardson, Texas, on the northern edge of the Dallas–Fort Worth Metroplex. The main campus is located in Richardson, Texas, approximately 18 miles north of downtown Dallas, on the boundary of Dallas and Collin counties. Though its postal address places it within the city limits of Richardson, one-third of the campus is within the borders of Dallas County. From its origins as a private research center created by the founders of Texas Instruments, UTD has grown into one of the largest public universities in the Dallas region, enrolling more than 30,000 students and offering degree programs across seven schools.

History and Founding

Before the founding of the University of Texas at Dallas, Eugene McDermott, Cecil Howard Green, and J. Erik Jonsson had purchased Geophysical Service Incorporated (GSI) on December 6, 1941 — the day before the attack on Pearl Harbor. With the rapid increase in defense contracts due to the declaration of war with Germany, the General Instrument Division of GSI grew substantially and was later reorganized under the name Texas Instruments, Inc. (TI) in 1951.

The increase in defense contracts also created a shortage in the Dallas–Fort Worth area of the qualified personnel required by TI. At the time, the region's universities did not provide enough graduates with advanced training in engineering and the physical sciences. Texas Instruments was forced to recruit talent from other states during its expansion, and the founders observed in 1959 that "To grow industrially, the region must grow academically."

In 1959–60, the founders of Texas Instruments — John Erik Jonsson, Eugene McDermott, and Cecil Green — with the help of Lloyd Berkner, president of Associated University, established the Graduate Research Center of the Southwest in Dallas. Chartered on February 14, 1961, the center concentrated on education and research in science and technology and was initially quartered in the Fondren Science Library at Southern Methodist University.

A nearby empty cotton field was later acquired by Jonsson, McDermott, and Green in Richardson, Texas in 1962. The first facility, the Laboratory of Earth and Planetary Science (later named the Founders Building), opened in 1964. In 1967, the name of the center was changed to the Southwest Center for Advanced Study, and in 1968 the coordinating board for the Texas College and University System recommended an upper-level state university in Dallas.

On June 13, 1969, Texas Governor Preston Smith signed House Bill 303, which added the institution to the University of Texas System as the University of Texas at Dallas, effective September 1, 1969. When Texas Instruments and UTD co-founders officially bequeathed the young university to the UT System, they boldly stated that they envisioned it would one day become the "MIT of the South." At the time, the college only accepted graduate students for master's and PhD programs — no undergraduate bachelor's degree programs were offered.

By law, UT Dallas offered only graduate degrees until 1975, when the addition of juniors and seniors helped boost enrollment from 408 to 3,333 students. In a later era, with a boost from 100 area companies raising more than $20 million, the creation of the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science received approval from the state, and the school admitted its first engineering students. It is the second-largest school at the University and is named for the late Erik Jonsson, a former mayor of Dallas and co-founder of Texas Instruments and UT Dallas.

Campus and Facilities

UT Dallas owns land in Richardson, Texas consisting of approximately 465 acres for campus development and another 265 acres adjacent to the campus. The main campus sits next to Dallas's Telecom Corridor, 18 miles north of downtown Dallas.

UTD also operates several locations in downtown Dallas — this includes the Crow Museum of Asian Art in the Dallas Arts District as well as multiple buildings in the Medical District next to UT Southwestern: the Center for BrainHealth, the Center for Vital Longevity, and the Callier Center for Communication Disorders.

The University of Texas at Dallas Geological Information Library holds the world's largest collection of petroleum well logs and geological data. Another key addition was the History of Aviation Collection, which opened in the Eugene McDermott Library in 1976. The University's Doolittle Library represents the only major collection of the general's memorabilia and personal files outside federal facilities. Doolittle was a pilot best remembered for leading an air strike over Tokyo in retaliation for the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

The physical campus straddles the jurisdictional boundary between Richardson and Dallas. The section of campus within Dallas County contains major areas in the south end of campus, including the Visitor Center, Bookstore, the Naveen Jindal School of Management, the Athletics District and facilities, half of the Founders Building, parking lots, and some on-campus student housing. When UT Dallas started growing in the 1960s, the university needed to coordinate with one of the cities for water, electricity, sewer, police, and fire services. Dallas agreed to let Richardson officially host the university because it did not have the ability or capacity to support UTD at the time.

Academics and Research

The university is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity." The seven schools offer more than 160 undergraduate and graduate programs, plus professional certificates and fast-track programs. Those seven schools are the Harry W. Bass Jr. School of Arts, Humanities, and Technology; the School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences; the School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences; the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science; the School of Interdisciplinary Studies; the Naveen Jindal School of Management; and the School of Natural Sciences and Mathematics.

The university encourages interdisciplinary studies by dispensing with discipline-based departmental structures. UT Dallas has a total undergraduate enrollment of 21,858 (fall 2024), its setting is suburban, and the campus size is 640 acres. The student-faculty ratio is 23:1, and it utilizes a semester-based academic calendar.

As of 2024, UTD had an 8-year student graduation rate of 70% for its undergraduate students seeking a bachelor's degree, compared to the national median of 58% for 4-year universities. This is the third-highest student graduation rate for public universities in Texas, behind the 82% student graduation rates of UT Austin and Texas A&M.

UT Dallas conducts cybersecurity research in a number of areas including cross-domain information sharing, data security and privacy, data mining for malware detection, and secure cloud computing. The university is designated a National Center of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Research by the National Security Agency and Department of Homeland Security.

The Alan G. MacDiarmid NanoTech Institute was established in 2001 when Bay Baughman became the Robert A. Welch Distinguished Chair in Chemistry and director of the university's NanoTech Institute. In 2007, it was renamed in memory of the late Alan G. MacDiarmid, who shared the 2000 Nobel Prize in chemistry.

The long-held dream of a UT Dallas engineering school became a reality in 1986 because of the joint efforts of business, community, and education leaders. The university also maintains a long-running partnership with UT Southwestern Medical Center, making it a key node in the broader Dallas Medical District research ecosystem.

Notable alumni include Nobel laureate Aziz Sancar. Sancar earned his PhD in molecular and cell biology in the School of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, and is one of three scientists who received the 2015 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their work detailing how cells continuously monitor and repair damaged DNA on a molecular level. UTD's first Nobel laureate, the late Dr. Polykarp Kusch, was a member of the university's physics faculty from 1972 to 1982.

Since 1996, the UT Dallas Chess team has won four President's Cup titles and has qualified for the national event 20 times out of 24. The chess program has recruited over 30 scholars with a Grandmaster title, a lifetime distinction held by only 2,000 individuals worldwide.

Athletics and Campus Life

The UT Dallas Comets are the athletic teams that represent the University of Texas at Dallas in NCAA Division II intercollegiate sports. On July 20, 2023, the university announced it would move to NCAA Division II and join the Lone Star Conference. On July 1, 2025, the Comets joined the Lone Star Conference, beginning the transition period from Division III. Varsity sports include baseball, basketball, cross country, golf, soccer, softball, tennis, track and field, and volleyball.

Temoc is the official mascot of UT Dallas. The character of Temoc was crafted in 1998 by alumnus Aaron Aryanpur. Temoc's name, blue skin, and fiery orange hair all come from a single source: Temoc is "comet" spelled backwards.

The official University colors are orange and green. The orange represents the UT System and is derived from the burnt orange of UT Austin. The green stems from the olive and oak branches featured in the University's official seal.

The Whoosh, a signature hand gesture, has become a way for UT Dallas students to show campus unity. The University began teaching the Whoosh at new student orientation in 2005, and it is now embraced as the symbolic gesture for all students and alumni. The salute is named the Whoosh because "it's the sound a comet would make if there was sound in space."

The University of Texas at Dallas has 300+ registered campus organizations, including fraternities and sororities. UTD has over 150,000 living alumni who have a campus home at the 15,000-square-foot Davidson-Gundy Alumni Center. UTD is home to 30,000 students, including over 5,000 international students from more than 100 countries.

Rankings and Recognition

In 2025, U.S. News & World Report's Best Colleges ranked UTD at tied for 109th among national universities. Princeton Review ranks UT Dallas #3 Best Value Public Colleges in Texas for 2025. It is ranked #597 in the QS World University Rankings 2026.

The Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education classifies UT Dallas as an R1 institution, a classification reserved for doctoral institutions with the highest research activity. UT Dallas has also achieved the critical benchmark criteria required to qualify for funding from the National Research University Fund, an exclusive source of research support available to the state's emerging research universities.

The school's in-state tuition and fees are $14,664; out-of-state tuition and fees are $40,164. Notably, 61% of UTD graduating seniors have no student debt, compared to 49% at public universities statewide and 51% at public universities nationwide.