Boston MIT


The mission of MIT is to advance knowledge and educate students in science, technology, and other areas of scholarship that will best serve the nation and the world in the 21st century.

The Institute is committed to generating, disseminating, and preserving knowledge, and to working with others to bring this knowledge to bear on the world's great challenges. MIT is dedicated to providing its students with an education that combines rigorous academic study and the excitement of discovery with the support and intellectual stimulation of a diverse campus community. We seek to develop in each member of the MIT community the ability and passion to work wisely, creatively, and effectively for the betterment of humankind.

The Institute admitted its first students in 1865, four years after the approval of its founding charter. The opening marked the culmination of an extended effort by William Barton Rogers, a distinguished natural scientist, to establish a new kind of independent educational institution relevant to an increasingly industrialized America. Rogers stressed the pragmatic and practicable. He believed that professional competence is best fostered by coupling teaching and research and by focusing attention on real-world problems. Toward this end, he pioneered the development of the teaching laboratory.

Today MIT is a world-class educational institution. Teaching and research--with relevance to the practical world as a guiding principle--continue to be its primary purpose. MIT is independent, coeducational, and privately endowed. Its five schools and one college encompass 34 academic departments, divisions, and degree-granting programs, as well as numerous interdisciplinary centers, laboratories, and programs whose work cuts across traditional departmental boundaries.

MIT is accredited by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges, Inc., through its Commission on Institutions of Higher Education.

Many degree programs at MIT are accredited by specialized professional accrediting bodies, including the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology, the American Chemical Society, the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, the Computer Science Accreditation Board, the National Architectural Accrediting Board, and the Planning Accreditation Board. Academic departments can provide information on the accreditation of the specific degree programs they offer.