Florida State University College Ranking 2016

Florida State University College Ranking 2016

The University of Florida commonly referred to as Florida is an American public land-grant, sea-grant, and space-grant research university located on a 2,000-acre (8.1 km2) campus in Gainesville, Florida. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida and traces its historical origins to 1853, and has operated continuously on its present Gainesville campus since September 1906.The University of Florida is one of sixty-two elected member institutions of the Association of American Universities the association of preeminent North American research universities, and the only AAU member university located in Florida. 

The University is classified as a Research University with Very High Research by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Following the creation of performance standards by the Florida state legislature in 2013, the Florida Board of Governors designated the University of Florida as one of the two preeminent universities among the twelve universities of the State University System of Florida. In 2015, U.S. News & World Report ranked Florida as the fourteenth best public university in the United States. The university is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. It is the third largest Florida University by student population, and is the eighth largest single-campus university in the United States with 49,913 students enrolled for the fall 2012 semester. 

The University of Florida is home to sixteen academic colleges and more than 150 research centers and institutes. It offers multiple graduate professional programs including business administration, engineering, law, dentistry, medicine, and veterinary medicine on one contiguous campus, and administers 123 master's degree programs and seventy-six doctoral degree programs in eighty-seven schools and departments.

The University of Florida's intercollegiate sports teams, commonly known by their Florida Gators nickname, compete in National Collegiate Athletic Association. Division I and the Southeastern Conference. In their 108-year history, the university's varsity sports teams have won thirty-five national team championships, thirty of which are NCAA titles, and Gator athletes have won 275 individual national championships.

The University of Florida traces its origins to 1853, when the East Florida Seminary, the oldest of the University of Florida's four predecessor institutions, was founded in Ocala, Florida. On January 6, 1853, Governor Thomas Brown signed a bill that provided public support for higher education in the state of Florida. Gilbert Kingsbury was the first person to take advantage of the legislation, and established the East Florida Seminary, which operated until the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861. The East Florida Seminary was the first state-supported institution of higher learning in Florida. 

James Henry Roper, an educator from North Carolina and a state senator from Alachua County, had opened a school in Gainesville the Gainesville Academy, in 1858. In 1866, Roper offered his land and school to the State of Florida in exchange for the relocation of the East Florida Seminary to Gainesville. The second major precursor to the University of Florida was the Florida Agricultural College, established at Lake City by Jordan Proust in 1884. Florida Agricultural College became the state's first land-grant college under the Morrill Act. In 1903, the Florida Legislature, desiring to expand the school's outlook and curriculum beyond its agricultural and engineering origins, changed the name of Florida Agricultural College to the University of Florida, a name that the school would hold for only two years.