Southwest Tennessee Community College was created with the 2000 merger of Shelby State Community College and the State Technical Institute at Memphis. It offers a range of degree and certificate programs, including accounting, arts and science, business studies, criminal justice, education, engineering, nursing, fine arts, hospitality management, humanities and information technology. Courses are offered at six campuses and centers in Memphis, and one teaching site in Somerville.
Founded in 1871, the Christian Brothers University is a Roman Catholic private educational institution west of downtown Memphis. The university offers undergraduate programs in liberal arts, business, engineering and sciences. Graduate degrees are also offered in engineering, business administration, Catholic studies and education. In 2010, the university was selected as one of the top 25 Southern universities by U.S. News & World Report and one of the best universities in the southeast by the Princeton Review.
Tracing its roots to 1941, Victory University is a private, for-profit institution of higher learning. Although it has undergone several name changes, the college was most recently known as Crichton College until 2010. The university is accredited to confer associate, baccalaureate, and master's degrees. Programs are offered in arts and sciences, behavioral sciences, bible and theology studies, business and education.
The LeMoyne-Owen College was created in 1968 following the merger of two historically black colleges with those names. Tracing its roots to 1871, the school is a private liberal arts college that confers bachelor's degrees across approximately 20 disciplines, including business, education, fine arts, humanities, natural and mathematical sciences, and social and behavioral sciences.
The University of Memphis is one of three comprehensive, doctoral-granting higher learning institutions in Tennessee and the largest university in the state. Founded in 1909 as the West Tennessee State Normal School, the University of Memphis has approximately 21,000 students as of 2011. The university confers approximately 3,000 bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees each year in a variety of academic and research fields. The university is also the home of the Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law.
The University of Tennessee launched its Memphis campus in 1911 as a dedicated center for health science education and research. Today, the University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC) in downtown Memphis is home to colleges in allied health sciences, graduate health sciences, medicine, dentistry, nursing and pharmacy. UTHSC also operates the Graduate School of Medicine in Knoxville and a medical school in Chattanooga.