The University is expanding west toward the Congaree River in support of its research initiatives in nanotechnology, health sciences, Future Fuels™, the environment, and information technologies. This innovation district, Innovista, includes a master plan for policy, physical infrastructure and support elements for job creation and growth in the knowledge economy. Innovista promises to be an economic catalyst that will raise the state’s per-capita income and quality of life by attracting knowledge-based businesses and high-paying jobs to an urban research university campus within a community that has a high livability appeal.
Joining the flagship campus in Columbia, are four-year campuses in Aiken, Beaufort, and Upstate (Spartanburg-Greenville). Four two-year campuses-Lancaster, Sumter, Salkehatchie (Allendale and Walterboro), and Union-help the University cover the state.
In addition, the University of South Carolina's:
- Columbia campus has 324 degree programs through its 14 degree-granting colleges and schools.
- Students have been awarded more than $13.9 million for national scholarships and fellowships since 1994.
- Faculty generated $218.8 million in funding for research, outreach, and training programs in fiscal year 2010. Carolina is one of only 63 public universities listed by the Carnegie Foundation in the highest tier of research institutions in the United States.
Since 1910, the mission of North Carolina Central University (NCCU) has been to prepare students academically and professionally to become leaders. NCCU is a comprehensive institution, which offers bachelor’s degrees in more than 100 fields of study and awards graduate degrees in an estimated 40 disciplines. The University has a state-of-the-art biotechnology research institute, which collaborates with pharmacy and biotech companies in the much-touted Research Triangle Park area, where NCCU is found. RTP is home to the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world – GSK (GlaxoSmithKline) and Merck. With nearly 9,000 students enrolled, the historically black university is diverse. International studies and exchange programs attract exchange students from more than 12 countries, including Liberia, India, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Nepal, China, the Czech Republic, Nigeria, South Korea, Russia, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, and South Africa.
Under authorization granted by the Baptist Educational and Missionary Convention of South Carolina in 1906, Morris College was established in 1908 "for the Christian and Intellectual Training of Negro youth." This action signaled the beginning of a heroic venture in higher education by a group of men and women less than a half century removed from the blight of American slavery. The majority of these "founding fathers" were poor and without any formal learning, but they possessed an "unfaltering faith in God and a zeal to provide for others the educational opportunities they themselves were denied."
At Meredith, our students achieve greatness because they come to expect it of themselves.