Brandeis University

Brandeis University () is a private research university in Waltham, Massachusetts, United States. It is located within the Greater Boston area. Founded in 1948 as a non-sectarian, coeducational university, Brandeis was established on the site of the former Middlesex University. It is named after Louis Brandeis, the first Jewish justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Brandeis is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity" and is accredited by the New England Commission of Higher Education. The university has been a member of the Association of American Universities (AAU) since 1985. In 2018, it had a total enrollment of 5,820 students on a campus of 235 acres (95 hectares).

Alumni and faculty of the university have included Nobel Prize laureates Drew Weissman, Michael Rosbash, Jeffrey C. Hall, and Roderick MacKinnon; Fields Medalist Edward Witten; Turing Award winners Leslie Lamport and Charles H. Bennett; Abel Prize winner Karen Uhlenbeck; and co-creators of the television show Friends, David Crane and Marta Kauffman.

History

Founding

Middlesex University was a medical school located in Waltham, Massachusetts, that was at the time the only medical school in Massachusetts that did not impose a quota on Jews.

The founder, John Hall Smith, died in 1944. Smith's will stipulated that the school should go to any group willing to use it to establish a non-sectarian university.

Within two years, Middlesex University was on the brink of financial collapse. The school had not been able to secure accreditation by the American Medical Association, which Smith partially attributed to institutional antisemitism in the American Medical Association.

Smith's son, C. Ruggles Smith, was desperate for a way to save something of Middlesex University. He learned of a New York committee headed by Israel Goldstein that was seeking a campus to establish a Jewish-sponsored secular university.

Smith approached Goldstein with a proposal to give the Middlesex campus and charter to Goldstein's committee, in the hope that his committee might "possess the apparent ability to reestablish the School of Medicine on an approved basis."

While Goldstein was concerned about being saddled with a failing medical school, he was excited about the opportunity to secure a 100-acre (40-hectare) "campus not far from New York, the premier Jewish community in the world, and only 9 miles (14 km) from Boston, one of the important Jewish population centers."

Goldstein agreed to accept Smith's offer, proceeding to recruit George Alpert, a Boston lawyer with fundraising experience as national co-chairman of the United Jewish Appeal.

Alpert had worked his way through Boston University School of Law and co-founded the firm of Alpert and Alpert. Alpert's firm had a long association with the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad, of which he was to become president from 1956 to 1961.

Alpert was chairman of Brandeis from 1946 to 1954, and a trustee from 1946 until his death. By February 5, 1946, Goldstein had recruited Albert Einstein, whose involvement drew national attention to the nascent university.

Einstein believed the university would attract the best young people in all fields, satisfying a real need.

In March 1946, Goldstein said the foundation had raised $10 million that it would use to open the school by the following year. The foundation purchased Middlesex University's land and buildings for two million dollars.

The charter of this operation was transferred to the foundation along with the campus. The founding organization was announced in August and named The Albert Einstein Foundation for Higher Learning, Inc.

Campus

The Heller School

The Heller School for Social Policy and Management has programs in social policy, health policy and management, and international development.

International Business School

Brandeis International Business School was established in 1994 as the Graduate School of International Economics and Finance. In 2003, the school changed its name to Brandeis International Business School.

The Rabb School of Continuing Studies

With more than 4,000 enrollments a year, the Rabb School of Continuing Studies develops educational offerings across four distinct divisions. It provides professional development opportunities through degree programs, personal enrichment and lifelong learning.

Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS) offers over 40 programs, 18 of which are doctoral programs. Brandeis graduate students are eligible to cross-register for courses at Boston College, Boston University, Tufts University, and the Graduate Consortium in Women's Studies at MIT. Brandeis is also a member of the Boston Library Consortium, composed of 18 academic and research institutions in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire.

Rose Art Museum

Established in 1961, the Rose Art Museum is a museum dedicated to 20th- and 21st-century art.

Library

The Brandeis Library provides resources and services to support research, scholarship, teaching, and learning on campus.

The library manages more than 1,500,000 physical volumes, and more than 600,000 electronic books, as well as electronic journals and online databases. As part of the library, the Robert D. Farber University Archives & Special Collections Department houses Brandeis University's unique and rare primary sources, which support teaching, research and scholarship at the university and beyond.

The department comprises University Archives, containing materials related to Brandeis University, and Special Collections, including rare books, original manuscripts dating from the 13th to 21st centuries, unique primary source material, and a wide variety of visual material.

Academics

The schools of the university include:

• College of Arts and Sciences
• Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
• Heller School for Social Policy and Management
• Rabb School of Summer and Continuing Studies
• Brandeis International Business School

The College of Arts and Sciences comprises 24 departments and 22 interdepartmental programs, which, in total, offer 43 majors and 47 minors.

The Heller School for Social Policy and Management, founded in 1959, has graduate programs in healthcare administration, social policy, and international development. Internships, research assistantships and other hands-on experiences are available throughout the curriculum. The global and experiential dimensions of education at Brandeis are carried out through international centers and institutes, which sponsor lectures and colloquia and add to the ranks of distinguished scholars on campus.

The Brandeis University Press, a member of the University Press of New England, publishes books in a variety of scholarly and general interest fields. The Goldfarb Library at Brandeis has more than 1.6 million volumes and 300,000 e-journals. The library also houses a large United States Government archive. Brandeis University is a part of the Boston Library Consortium, which allows its students, faculty, and staff to access and borrow books and other materials from other BLC institutions including Tufts University and Williams College.

Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies

In 1980, Brandeis University established the Maurice and Marilyn Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies, the first academic center devoted to the study of Jewish life in the United States. The Cohen Center's work spans basic research on Jewish identity to applied educational evaluation studies.

The center's recent signature studies include research with participants in Taglit-Birthright Israel, investigations of synagogue transformation, analyses of Jewish summer camping, and socio-demographic studies of Jewish communities throughout the United States. CMJS research has altered the understanding of contemporary Jewish life and the role of Jewish institutions in the United States.

Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism

The Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism was launched in September 2004 as the first investigative reporting center based at a United States university. It was named for founding benefactors Elaine Schuster and Gerald Schuster.

The institute's major projects were:

the Political & Social Justice Project

the Justice Brandeis Innocence Project

the Gender & Justice Project.

The Schuster Institute closed at the end of 2018 due to financial considerations.

Admissions and tuition

Tuition for the 2026–27 will be $73,080 for most full-time students. The previous school year, 82% of undergraduates attending the school on a full-time basis received financial aid in the form of grants or scholarships.

In May 2026, the school introduced a financial aid tool on its website that will use student transcripts and parent tax returns to calculate how much tuition "will" be if the student is admitted, including any eligible merit and need-based aid. The amount calculated by Faye (an acronym for F.A., short for financial aid) is not guaranteed for students not yet in their junior year or where documents are incomplete, or if there are significant changes in academic performance, family financial circumstances or the number of applicants to the university. This tool differs from the federally mandated college cost calculators used by other universities that provide far less certainty in their estimates.

Research

Brandeis is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very High Research Activity". In FY 2017, Brandeis spent $68.4 million on research and was ranked 174 in the nation by total R&D expenditure. These include sponsored research funds from sources including the National Institutes of Health; the National Science Foundation and the US Department of Health and Human Services as well as a range of foundations.

The university's Division of Science encompasses seven departments (Biochemistry, Biology, Chemistry, Computer Science, Mathematics, Physics, and Psychology), five interdepartmental programs (Biochemistry & Biophysics, Biological Physics, Biotechnology, Genetic Counseling, Molecular & Cell Biology, and Neuroscience), six science centers (Ashton Graybiel Spatial Orientation Laboratory, National Center for Behavioral Genomics, Rosenstiel Basic Medical Sciences Research Center, Sloan-Swartz Center for Theoretical Neurobiology, Benjamin and Mae Volen National Center for Complex Systems, and W.M. Keck Institute for Cellular Visualization), and more than 50 laboratories that investigate fundamental life processes ranging from the structure and function of individual macromolecules to the mechanisms that control the behavior of whole organisms.

Faculty, postdoctoral fellows, graduate students and undergraduates investigate areas such as neuronal development and plasticity, signal transduction, immunology, the molecular basis of genetic recombination, and the three-dimensional structure of macromolecular assemblies. Brandeis science faculty include 12 National Academy of Science members, three Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigators, two Howard Hughes Medical Institute professors, two MacArthur Foundation Fellows, and 15 American Association for the Advancement of Sciences Fellows.

Brandeis undergraduate students have the opportunity to work with faculty, postdoctoral students and graduate students to conduct original laboratory research. Brandeis also offers a number of funding resources to support independent undergraduate research projects. In 2008, Brandeis established a Science Posse program, a merit-based scholarship program that admits students based on their academic, leadership and communication skills, and their interests in studying science.

Founded by Irving Epstein, the Henry F. Fischbach Professor of Chemistry, and supported by a Howard Hughes Medical Institute grant, the Science Posse program is focused on increasing the recruitment and retention of students from traditionally underrepresented groups in the sciences. The program recruits, trains, and provides mentoring and other services for 10 inner-city Atlanta students each year who are interested in studying science at the undergraduate level.

Student life

The university has an active student government, the Brandeis Student Union, as well as more than 270 student organizations. Fraternities and sororities are not officially recognized by Brandeis University, as they are contrary to a central tenet of the university, namely, that student organizations be open to all students, with membership determined by competency or interest.

According to an official handbook, "exclusive or secret societies are inconsistent with the principles of openness to which the University is committed." Brandeis became the first university to ban Students for Justice in Palestine from campus, occurring shortly after a vigil hosted by SJP relating to Palestinian lives lost in the Gaza war.

Brandeis has 11 a cappella groups, six undergraduate-run theater companies, one sketch comedy troupe (Boris' Kitchen, founded in 1987), four improv-comedy groups, and many other cultural and arts clubs, as well as student activism groups that advocate for causes including environmentalism, immigration reform, LGBTQ rights, feminism, and anti-racism.

Eight undergraduate organizations have received the distinction of "secured status," meaning they have existed more than five years and "have a specific purpose of serving the entire Brandeis student body." These student organizations include The Brandeis Justice, the Brandeis Emergency Medical Corps, and the Campus Activities Board. In April 2026, the Brandeis Mountain Club (B.M.C.) became the university's newest secured club. Since 1987, the organization has offered students free and fully-financed wilderness trips including, skiing, backpacking, ice-climbing, whitewater rafting and more. For several years, it has been the largest student organization in terms of student signups, with nearly 1,500 members.

Brandeis is also home to what has been cited as one of the country's few undergraduate-run law publications. Of particular note is the Brandeis Academic Debate and Speech Society (B.A.D.A.S.S.), which consistently ranks as one of the top 10 debate teams in the United States, and participates across the globe in the World Universities Debating Championships each year. During the 2012–2013 school year, B.A.D.A.S.S. was the second most successful team overall on the American Parliamentary Debate Association Circuit.

Cholmondeley's coffeehouse, commonly referred to as "Chums", is located in Brandeis' Usen Castle. Chums is a popular site for student performances and concerts, including Tracy Chapman, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Matt Pond PA, and Genesis (notable as their first American performance). Early footage of Chums appears in the short documentary film, Coffee House Rendezvous.

Athletics

Brandeis fields 19 Division III varsity athletic programs. Brandeis athletic teams compete in the University Athletic Association (UAA).

Brandeis has won NCAA team championships in men's soccer (1976) and men's cross country (1983), as well as 24 individual titles. Brandeis teams have earned 17 NCAA Division III Tournament berths and won eight Eastern Collegiate Athletic Association (ECAC) New England crowns in the last decade. Nine teams have earned national rankings, with men's and women's basketball and men's and women's soccer all ascending to the top 10 in the nation during that span.

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