New Jersey Institute of Technology is a public research university in Newark, New Jersey with a degree-granting satellite campus in Jersey City. Founded in 1881 with the support of local industrialists and inventors especially Edward Weston, NJIT opened as Newark Technical School in 1885 with 88 students. The school grew into a classic engineering college – Newark College of Engineering – and then, with the addition of a School of Architecture in 1973, into a polytechnic university that now hosts five colleges and one school. As of fall 2020, the university enrolls about 11,600 students, 2,000 of whom live on campus.
NJIT offers 52 undergraduate majors and 67 graduate programs. Via its Honors College it also offers professional programs in Healthcare and Law in collaboration with nearby institutions including Rutgers Medical School and Seton Hall Law School. Cross-registration with Rutgers University-Newark which borders its campus is also available. NJIT is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity". It operates the Big Bear Solar Observatory, the Owens Valley Radio Observatory and a suite of automated observatories across Antarctica, South America and the US.
As of May 2021, the school's founders, faculty and alumni include a Turing Award winner, a Dannie Heineman Prize for Mathematical Physics winner, 9 members of the National Academy of Engineering, 2 members of the National Inventors Hall of Fame, 1 member of the National Academy of Sciences, an astronaut, a National Medal of Technology and Innovation winner, a Congressional Gold Medal winner, a William Bowie Medal winner, multiple IEEE medalists, and 15 members of the National Academy of Inventors including 5 senior members. Over the past 20 years NJIT graduates have won fourteen Goldwaters, five Fulbrights, a Truman, a Boren, four Gilmans, three DAADs, a Tau Beta Pi graduate Fellowship, a Humanity in Action Fellowship, two Whitakers, and sixteen NSF Graduate Research Fellowships.