Arizona State University

Arizona State University is a public research university based in Tempe, Arizona, founded in 1885 as the Territorial Normal School. It grew from a teachers college into a multi-campus university serving the Phoenix metropolitan area, with campuses in Tempe, downtown Phoenix, Mesa, and Glendale, plus a large online division. It is organized as one public university of many colleges rather than a collegiate or single-campus technical institute.

Graduate study is housed in more than a dozen colleges, including the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering, the W. P. Carey School of Business, the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law, and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Research units that matter to graduate students include the Biodesign Institute and the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability. Engineering, business, sustainability, education, and law are the fields most associated with advanced degrees here.

Including online students, enrollment is about 140,000, among the largest of any public university in the United States, with tens of thousands in graduate and professional programs. International students come from more than 150 countries. Faculty number in the thousands. Notable alumni include golfer Phil Mickelson, athlete Pat Tillman, and actor David Spade.

The university awards research Ph.D. degrees, professional doctorates, and many professional master's degrees. Supervision follows a U.S. departmental model of coursework, examinations, and a dissertation or applied capstone. The calendar is the semester system. Teaching and research assistantships are common in STEM and some social sciences; professional master's students more often use other funding. Campus-based graduate life is in Tempe and Phoenix, a large desert metro with internships across the Valley.

In the Grad School Navigator directory, Arizona State University lists 61 graduate programs across 35 subjects: 25 master's programs and 34 doctoral programs, with the widest choice in biology, business & management and operations research & management science. Arizona State University holds rank 175 in the GSN Overall University Ranking.