Our Priorities
Launched with the help of a $30 million endowment from the Grainger Engineering Breakthroughs Initiative, the Engineering Visionary Scholarship (EVS) Initiative boosts our ability to bring the best engineers to Illinois by making college more affordable for students and their families. We place a particular focus on highly qualified students from the State of Illinois. Our long-term vision is to provide our students with large, renewable scholarships that transform their undergraduate experience, and help them choose The Grainger College of Engineering at Illinois.
Affordability
Ensure that Grainger Engineering is affordable for any student who can succeed here
Diversity
Make Grainger Engineering more vibrant by bringing together more diverse perspectives
Global Impact
Bring even more of the very best students to The Grainger College of Engineering
Student Quality
Create world-changing technologies and insights, as we have for over 150 years
Scholarships work. They bring amazing engineers to Illinois.
The flexibility of EVS allows the college to offer scholarships to students where we see the most need coupled with the most deserving students. Since the initiative kicked off, there has been a direct correlation between more scholarships awarded and increase in enrollment numbers.
- 55% increase in the number of women in the first-year class
- 55% increase in the number of under-represented student populations in the freshman class
- 6 times more first-generation college students offered scholarships than in 2012
As the Initiative continues, we will continue to focus on the enrollment of women, as well as, other groups traditionally underrepresented in engineering. Our ideas and discoveries can only help the world if we get them out to the world. We want to make sure every student who can succeed at Engineering at Illinois has the opportunity to do so. Providing scholarships—like EVS—will allow us to have global impact.
Our excellence is as broad as it is deep.
The best students and educators come to Illinois to connect with top faculty, a diverse student body, and successful alumni who are collaborative, innovative, and drive towards excellence.
- 32.5 is the average ACT score of our incoming first-year students
- 50% of undergraduates participate in research
- 70+ engineering-based student organizations
- 60+ laboratories, research centers, and institutions
- 2,000+ research projects each semester
- 11% above national average for average starting salary of bachelor's degree graduates