FIU belongs to the 12-campus State University System of Florida and is one of Florida's primary graduate research universities, awarding over 3,400 graduate and professional degrees annually. The university offers 191 programs of study with more than 280 majors in 23 colleges and schools. FIU offers many graduate programs, including architecture, business administration, engineering, law, and medicine, offering 81 master's degrees, 34 doctoral degrees, and 3 professional degrees.
FIU is the largest university in South Florida, the 2nd-largest in Florida, and the 4th-largest in the United States. Total enrollment in 2014-2015 was 54,099 students, including 7,814 graduate students. According to U.S. News college rankings and reviews, 92% of FIU students live off-campus while only 8% of students live in "college-owned, college-operated or college-affiliated" housing.
Since 2007, more valedictorians from South Florida choose to attend FIU than any other university in the country. As Miami's public research university, competition to enroll at FIU has heightened as more students apply each year.
The story of Florida International University's founding began in 1943, when state Senator Ernest 'Cap' Graham (father of future Florida governor and U.S. senator Bob Graham) presented the state legislature with the initial proposal for the establishment of a public university in South Florida. While his bill did not pass, Graham persisted in presenting his proposal to colleagues, advising them of Miami's need for a state university. He felt the establishment of a public university was necessary to serve the city's growing population.
In 1964, Senate Bill 711 was introduced by Florida Senator Robert M. Haverfield. It instructed the state Board of Education and the Board of Regents (BOR), to begin planning for the development of a state university in Miami. The bill was signed into law by then-governor W. Haydon Burns in June 1965, marking FIU's official founding.
FIU's founding president Charles "Chuck" Perry was appointed by the Board of Regents in July 1969 after a nationwide search. At 32 years old, the new president was the youngest in the history of the State University System and, at the time, the youngest university president in the country. Perry recruited three co-founders, Butler Waugh, Donald McDowell and Nick Sileo. Alvah Chapman, Jr., former Miami Herald publisher and Knight Ridder chairman, used his civic standing and media power to assist the effort. In the 1980s, Chapman became chair of the FIU Foundation Board of Trustees.
The founders located the campus on the site of the original Tamiami Airport on the Tamiami Trail (U.S. Route 41) between Southwest 107th and 117th Avenues, just east of where the West Dade Expressway (now the Homestead Extension of Florida's Turnpike) was being planned. The abandoned airport's air traffic control tower became FIU's first building. It originally had no telephones, no drinking water, and no furniture. Perry decided that the tower should never be destroyed, and it remains on campus, where it is now known variously as the "Ivory Tower," the "Tower Building," or the "Public Safety Tower," and is the former location of the FIU Police Department.
In September 1972, 5,667 students entered the new state university, the largest opening day enrollment at the time. Previously, Miami had been the largest city in the country lacking a public baccalaureate-granting institution. Eighty percent of the student body had just graduated from Dade County Junior College (now Miami-Dade College). A typical student entering FIU was 25 years old and attending school full-time while holding down a full-time job. Forty-three percent were married. Negotiations with the University of Miami and Dade County Junior College led FIU to open as an upper-division only school. It would be 9 years before lower-division classes were added.
The first commencement, held in June 1973, took place in the reading room of the ground floor of Primera Casa – the only place large enough on campus for the ceremony. More than 1,500 family members and friends watched FIU's first class of 191 graduates receive their diplomas.
By late 1975, after seven years at the helm, Charles Perry felt he had accomplished his goal and left the University to become president and publisher of the Sunday newspaper magazine Family Weekly (now USA Weekend), one of the country's largest magazines. When he left, there were more than 10,000 students attending classes and a campus with five major buildings and a sixth being planned.
