A Recent Academic History

Faculty Growth

The faculty in each school expanded significantly, and with the financial support of University trustees through the Partners Plan, faculty in arts and science grew by almost 20 percent between 2004 and 2010, the largest such expansion in NYU’s history. Strategic investments were made in the humanities and arts, social sciences, and life and physical sciences.

Faculty Awards

Past and present members of our faculty have received five Nobel Prizes since 2000 (four in economics and one in chemistry); four Abel Prizes (considered by many to be the “Nobel of Mathematics”); one National Medal of Science; one National Medal of Technology and Innovation; four National Humanities Medals; six Pulitzer Prizes; over half a dozen Grammy Awards; and many additional prestigious awards, prizes, and honors.

Research Expenditures

Research expenditures at NYU increased over the last five years from $121 million to $181 million (from $322 million to $467 million including the School of Medicine). At the School of Medicine, research expenditures increased from $201 million in 2010 to $286 million in 2014.

Academic Rankings

NYU is now No. 27 on the 2015 Shanghai Academic Ranking of World Universities, up from No. 55 in 2003. We are No. 38 in the Times Higher Education’s 2014-2015 World University Rankings, up from No. 60 in 2010-2011. We are No. 36 in the 2015 U.S. News & World Report ranking of global universities, and a Thomson Reuters 2015 report named NYU (and King’s College London) leaders in “Most Improved Reputation 2010-2014.”

School of Engineering

On January 1, 2014, after a 40-year absence, engineering formally returned to NYU as NYU's Polytechnic School of Engineering, reestablishing and strengthening engineering, applied science, and technology at NYU. In 2015, an historic $100 million gift was made to rename the school the Tandon School of Engineering.  

Research Across All NYU Campuses

While faculty have always collaborated with colleagues in other NYU schools and institutes, new institutional grants for collaborative research spurred formal interschool partnerships with NYU’s new Tandon School of Engineering. Substantial funding from the Abu Dhabi Institute, allocated in peer-reviewed competition, supports faculty conducting research and collaborating with colleagues in NYU Abu Dhabi. In Shanghai, New York–based faculty are conducting research at NYU-East China Normal University (ECNU) centers in mathematical sciences, cognitive sciences, physics, computational chemistry, volatility, and social development. Collaborative research receives additional support from NYU Global Seed Grants for Collaborative Research New York-Abu Dhabi-Shanghai.

Connectivity in Graduate Training

New training programs leverage the strengths of multiple schools, including through interschool centers, such as the Center for Urban Science and Progress (CUSP) and the Center for Data Science. As another example, longstanding doctoral programs in neural science in the School of Medicine and the Faculty of Arts and Science are now fully coordinated.

Across the New York, Abu Dhabi, and Shanghai campuses, graduate training in science and engineering is increasingly aligned, with Biology, Chemistry, and Neural Science formally coordinating admissions and pathways for study.

Faculty of Health

The Faculty of Health was created in 2015 to strengthen teaching and research in the health disciplines. It includes the College of Dentistry, the Rory Meyers College of Nursing (previously a division of the Steinhardt School and then the College of Dentistry), and the School of Global Public Health (first created as the Global Institute of Public Health in 2012).

Research in the Health Sciences

NYU’s School of Medicine—innovative in piloting a three-year degree and introducing technology and simulations to the curriculum—is ranked No. 2 in New York State and No. 14 for research in U.S. News & World Report’s Best Medical Schools, up from No. 34 in 2007. The Rory Meyers College of Nursing is No. 6 in U.S. News & World Report’s ranking of the country’s best nursing schools, up from No. 26 in 2009; and the College of Dentistry is ranked No. 9 in NIH research funding, up from No. 37 in 2000.

The Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (ISAW) was established in 2006 with a major philanthropic gift to study antiquity across time and place. ISAW’s faculty offer doctoral and postdoctoral programs, teach undergraduate courses in the College of Arts and Science, sponsor a visiting fellows program, and hold exhibitions and events in its historic, restored townhouse on New York’s “Museum Mile.”

Among University-wide initiatives are The Center for Ballet and the Arts (2014); the Institute for the Interdisciplinary Study of Decision Making (IISDM, 2014); the Media and Games Network (MAGNET, 2013), a multischool facility with faculty whose research and teaching bridge technology, culture, and the arts through the study of games; the Marron Institute of Urban Management (2013), for solution-oriented research on cities; the Center for Data Science (2013); the Center for Urban Science and Progress (CUSP, 2012), established with an award from the Applied Sciences New York City Initiative; China House (2006); and Africa House (2002).

New Degree Programs

Since 2001, 184 new degree programs at NYU have been approved by the New York State Education Department, ranging from a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in game design and a Master of Arts degree in bioethics to a Ph.D. in music technology and a Master of Arts degree in museum studies.

Dozens of dual degree programs have been created to better serve student and faculty interests and needs—with over 100 such programs created since 2001.

New Degree-Granting Campuses

We have created two degree-granting liberal arts campuses—NYU Abu Dhabi (2010) and NYU Shanghai (2013)—each with an exceptionally talented student body and significant, faculty-led research. In the first two graduating classes of NYU Abu Dhabi, among the many achievements of those students, five won Rhodes Scholarships.

Coordinated Faculty Recruitment

The process of searching, hiring, promoting, and tenuring full-time faculty at the NYU Abu Dhabi and NYU Shanghai campuses is tightly coordinated with New York, with faculty required to have academic titles in New York and New York faculty taking on sustained teaching assignments in Shanghai and in Abu Dhabi.

Teaching and Conducting Research Across NYU's Global Network

The global network offers NYU faculty an unparalleled range of international and multidisciplinary opportunities for research, teaching, and scholarly collaboration.

Global Research Institutes (GRI)

Since 2011, GRI has facilitated and funded research-related activities at select NYU global sites, including short- and long-term faculty and graduate student visits; dissertation workshops for doctoral students; and workshops, colloquia, and collaboration between NYU faculty in New York and NYU faculty at the sites and in Abu Dhabi and Shanghai.

Study Away Locations and Coordinated Curricula

NYU added to its longstanding European locations academic programs at new sites in Accra, Berlin, Buenos Aires, Sydney, Tel Aviv, and Washington, DC, as well as Shanghai and Abu Dhabi.

Curricula in all of NYU’s global sites are designed and overseen by academic departments in New York, Abu Dhabi, and Shanghai through site-specific advisory committees, ensuring that all course offerings meet NYU’s high academic standards. These site-specific advisory committees meet regularly to design academic pathways that allow students to fulfill major requirements while studying in any of NYU’s locations.

Students Studying Abroad

The number of NYU undergraduates studying abroad for at least a semester doubled between 2002 and 2012. In 2014, the Institute of International Education ranked NYU No. 1 both for the number of students studying abroad (as has been the case for more than 10 years) and the number of international students studying in New York.

Entrepreneurship

Since 1982, the Berkley Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation has nurtured the ambitions of NYU students, alumni, and researchers. In 2014, the Leslie Entrepreneurs Lab opened its doors as a collaborative space to train, coach, and support entrepreneurs and as headquarters for the Entrepreneurial Institute and the Innovation Venture Fund. In a similar vein, the NYU Production Lab supports emerging filmmakers in launching successful careers. NYU ranks No. 16 on Forbes’s 2014 list of America’s Most Entrepreneurial Universities.

Patents and Licensing Revenue

Since 2001, 762 patents were awarded to NYU (430 to the School of Medicine). In the five years ending August 2014, NYU’s licensing revenue almost doubled, totaling $935 million (all but $13.7 million in Medicine), with NYU launching roughly 50 percent more startup companies per research dollar expended than the national university average. And in the five years just ending, NYU spawned 46 startup ventures (21 from Medicine).

Business Incubators

NYU’s Tandon School of Engineering hosts three business incubators—Urban Future Lab (since 2014), DUMBO Incubator (since 2012), and Varick Street Incubator (since 2009)—established in partnership with New York City and New York State. These incubators have raised $145 million in equity financing and have “graduated” 51 businesses, creating 1,256 jobs and generating $352 million in economic impact.

Student Applications

For eight years in a row, NYU has achieved record-setting levels of applications for admission to our undergraduate schools and colleges. For the Class of 2019, we received over 60,000 applications, the most of any private university. NYU has become a far more selective university, with ever more qualified students in our freshman class.

Student Diversity

Of freshmen entering in 2015, 20 percent are underrepresented students of color, compared to 10 percent of such freshmen entering in 2002; 20 percent are international students; and 20 percent are first-generation college students. Roughly 22 percent of our incoming class are eligible to receive Pell Grants (an indicator of the most economically needy students).

Graduate and Professional Students

The total number of graduate students enrolled at NYU increased from 19,200 in 2004 to 24,300 in 2014. The graduate schools offer an extensive program of multiyear funding, including tuition scholarships, academic year stipends, and the opportunity to teach in our academic departments with additional compensation.

Counseling Services

In 2013, following a decade of intense investment in student health and counseling services, NYU was awarded the Jed Foundation’s JedCampus seal for the quality of its mental health and suicide prevention programs.

Financial Aid

For the fall 2015 incoming undergraduate class in New York, NYU will award over $269 million—more institutional scholarship aid than ever, up from $106 million 10 years ago. The average financial aid award as a percentage of tuition and fees for freshmen increased from 34 percent in 2002 to 54 percent in 2014. The Momentum Campaign to raise $1 billion for financial aid, launched in 2013, has raised $425 million to date.

Student Debt

Over the last five years, the average student debt upon graduation for NYU students declined by 30 percent, down to $27,977, lower than the national average.

Across its New York campuses, NYU has added approximately 1.8 million square feet in the last 10 years and renovated existing properties to house new academic initiatives and strengthen existing programs. Among the major projects that transformed the face of NYU are new homes for the School of Professional Studies (East 12th Street) and the Wagner Graduate School of Public Service (Puck Building), a new concourse for the Stern School, and a New York base for NYU Abu Dhabi (Washington Square North). In the sciences, faculty laboratories in Arts and Science and at the Tandon School of Engineering were renovated; the Center for Genomics and Systems Biology (Waverly Place) opened in 2011; and in January 2015, we opened 433 First Avenue for the College of Dentistry, the Rory Meyers College of Nursing, and the Bioengineering Institute.

Among new academic homes are spaces for the Departments of English (Greene Street), Jazz Studies (Third Avenue), Philosophy (Washington Place), Linguistics (Washington Place), Teaching and Learning (East Building), Media, Culture and Communication (East Building), Sociology (Puck Building) and, in Washington Mews, for the Institute for African American Affairs (IAAA), Africa House, China House, and the Asian/Pacific/American Institute (APA). In construction is a new facility for the Department of Physics (726 Broadway). Research programs in the social sciences, humanities, and the arts found new homes at 20 Cooper Square. Faculty offices and research centers for the School of Law were built at Washington Square North and Wilf Hall.

Classroom renovations took place in the Silver and Waverly Buildings; Bobst Library (which is also creating suites of research commons); the Goddard and Rubin Residence Halls; the Global Center for Academic and Spiritual Life, which opened its doors on Washington Square South in 2012; and the Academic Resource Center, created on Washington Place in 2011.