SIUE is a vibrant, growing Metropolitan University offering undergraduate and graduate degrees in the Arts and Sciences, Business, Education, Engineering and Nursing and professional degrees in Dental Medicine and Pharmacy. About SIUE * We have more than 13,600 students (Fall 2008). * We are proud to be part of the SIU System. * Ours is one of the most beautiful campuses in the country with 2,660 acres of rolling hills, woodlands and lakes. * With a student-to-faculty ratio of 16 to 1, students can get to know the faculty and have resources for career opportunities and references for graduate school. * SIUE offers an outstanding faculty, affordable tuition and easy access to the professional and cultural opportunities of metropolitan St. Louis, Missouri, just 20 miles from the campus. * Nearly 80,000 SIUE alumni demonstrate our values and contribute to the economy. Southern Illinois University Edwardsville is a public comprehensive university dedicated to the communication, expansion and integration of knowledge through excellent undergraduate education as its first priority and complementary excellent graduate and professional academic programs; through the scholarly, creative and research activity of its faculty, staff and students; and through public service and cultural and arts programming in its region. Vision Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, as a premier Metropolitan University, will be recognized nationally for the excellence of its programs and development of professional and community leaders. SIUE celebrated its 50th Anniversary in 2007. The institution traces its origin to a farsighted group of concerned parents and business leaders in the community. In 1955, the group began an advocacy campaign to establish a public university. By 1956, they had formed the Southwestern Illinois Council for Higher Education. Convinced that public higher education opportunities were needed in the Metro-East portion of the greater St. Louis area, the Council aggressively lobbied state officials and commissioned a consultant study to document that need. Old CarsIn 1957, the See-Myers report was released and indicated that in Madison-St. Clair Counties, with 600,000 residents, the largest population concentration in the state outside of metropolitan Chicago, only three percent of the adult population had completed four years of college. There was no conveniently located university in the two-county area and many students could not afford to pay tuition and live away from home. Area business leaders and industrialists articulated an ever-growing need to hire college-educated employees.
