Rhode Island School of Design

Rhode Island School of Design is a private college of art and design in Providence, Rhode Island, founded in 1877. It developed from a late-nineteenth-century design school into a compact campus on College Hill, next to Brown University, with which it shares cross-registration and a dual-degree pathway. Its defining fact is a specialist art-and-design mission rather than a full general university.

Departments span architecture, industrial design, graphic design, illustration, painting, sculpture, photography, textiles, and related studio fields. The RISD Museum and extensive studios and shops are the main making spaces for graduate students. Strengths that attract MFA candidates include industrial and graphic design, architecture, and fine arts.

Enrollment is about 2,500 students, of whom roughly 400 to 500 are in graduate programs. International students form a noticeable share of the studio population. Faculty are practicing artists and designers. Alumni include glass artist Dale Chihuly, graphic designer Shepard Fairey, and animator Seth MacFarlane.

Graduate study is concentrated in the Master of Fine Arts and a smaller set of master's degrees in design and architecture, with studio critique as the core supervision model rather than large lecture courses. The calendar follows a two-semester year. Students work in downtown Providence, using College Hill studios and the city's design economy.

In the Grad School Navigator directory, Rhode Island School of Design lists 5 graduate programs across 5 subjects, all of them master's programs, with the widest choice in architecture, education and environmental design.