The University of Chicago is a private, coeducational research institution located in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois, United States. It was incorporated in 1890 and formally opened in 1892 under the auspices of the American Baptist Education Society. The initial funding came from Baptist oil magnate John D. Rockefeller, who later called it "the best investment I ever made". The university was created to be a nonsectarian, coeducational institution modeled on the graduate research universities of Germany, combining an English-style undergraduate college with a German-style research institution. Its first president, William Rainey Harper, envisioned an institution primarily devoted to graduate studies and introduced innovations like the four-quarter system.
The university is known for its intellectual rigor and its distinctive Core Curriculum, a rigorous, interdisciplinary program required for all undergraduates that covers humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. It is composed of an undergraduate college, four graduate research divisions, and seven professional schools, including the Booth School of Business and the Law School. The university is strongly connected to the influential Chicago School of Economics, known for its free-market principles, and has produced over 100 Nobel laureates among its students, faculty, and staff. Historically, it was the site of the first controlled, self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction in 1942 under Enrico Fermi.
A recent change announced in May 2026 is a multiyear plan to expand undergraduate enrollment to approximately 9,000 students, a nearly 20% increase from the current 7,519 undergraduates, as part of a strategy to eliminate the operating deficit by 2028. Additionally, in July 2026, the Law School implemented a new policy banning all technology, including phones and computers, in classrooms for first-year students to encourage critical thinking without reliance on AI shortcuts. The university also operates and administers major research institutions like the Argonne National Laboratory and the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory.