Carnegie Mellon University

Carnegie Mellon University is a private university founded in 1900. The total undergraduate enrollment is 7,707 (Fall 2023) on a 122-acre campus. The university operates on a semester-based academic calendar. Carnegie Mellon University is ranked #21 in National Universities in the 2025 edition of Best Colleges. Tuition and fees are $65,636.

Founded by industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, Carnegie Mellon University is located in Pittsburgh, where there are dining and entertainment options, as well as professional sports teams, including the Penguins (hockey), Steelers (football) and Pirates (baseball). Only freshmen are required to live on campus, but the school guarantees housing all four years and most students choose to live on campus. Nearly 20% students participate in Greek life, which consists of more than 20 fraternities and sororities. Carnegie Mellon's Tartans football team competes in NCAA Division III, and the Kiltie Band plays at Scottish dress is performed at every home football game.

Carnegie Mellon is known for its science and technology programs, but its seven colleges also include the College of Fine Arts and the Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences. Its graduate programs include the highly ranked Tepper School of Business, the Carnegie Institute of Technology, and the School of Computer Science. Undergraduates at Carnegie Mellon have the opportunity to participate in research and may even be eligible for grants or summer fellowships to support research in their area of specialization. Randy Pausch, author of the New York Times bestseller The Last Lesson, was a professor at Carnegie Mellon.