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Illinois Tech Futures

Three colleges. One interdisciplinary core. A clearer path to the future.

Illinois Tech is bringing its academic programs into three future-focused colleges—Tech Futures, Design Futures, and Professional Futures—while deepening the interdisciplinary core that has long defined the university.

The new model is designed to make collaboration easier, pathways clearer, and an Illinois Tech education even more connected to the technological, economic, social, and human challenges students are preparing to solve.

Illinois Tech was founded to meet a moment of profound change. More than 135 years later, that work continues.

Explore the New Model

Illinois Tech’s new academic model is built around a simple idea: strong disciplinary homes make deeper interdisciplinary work possible.

The three colleges form the outer rings—where we start.
The interdisciplinary core is the center—where we’re headed.

Hover to focus the lens. Click to look closer. Click the center to step back.

The Three Colleges

Tech Futures

Engineering, computing, health, science, and emerging technologies

Tech Futures brings together fields that are shaping the next era of technological progress, from artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and data science to engineering, health technology, life sciences, and applied research.

This college is designed to connect technical depth with real-world impact, preparing students to build, secure, analyze, design, and lead in a world where every field is becoming technology-driven.

Man looking at whiteboard with post it notes

Design Futures

Architecture, design, human-centered innovation, and the built environment

Design Futures connects Illinois Tech’s globally recognized strengths in architecture and design with the university’s long legacy of experimentation, social purpose, and human-centered problem solving.

Rooted in the influence of the New Bauhaus and shaped for the challenges of the twenty-first century, this college brings together the disciplines that help us imagine, design, test, and build better systems, spaces, products, services, and experiences.

Professional Futures

Law, business, leadership, policy, and professional practice

Professional Futures brings together fields that shape institutions, markets, policy, governance, entrepreneurship, and professional life.

By connecting law and business within a broader technology-focused university, this college is designed to prepare students to lead responsibly in complex environments where innovation, regulation, ethics, economics, and public impact increasingly intersect.

The Future of Learning—Starting Now

The world our students are entering is changing fast. Artificial intelligence is reshaping work. Health, climate, infrastructure, cybersecurity, law, finance, cities, and design are increasingly interconnected. Employers are looking for graduates who can move across disciplines, work in teams, understand technology, communicate clearly, and apply knowledge in real settings.

Illinois Tech’s new academic structure is designed for that world.

It builds on what the university already does best: rigorous technical education, hands-on learning, relevance-inspired research, industry and community engagement, and a founding commitment to opportunity.

This is not a departure from Illinois Tech’s mission. It is a renewal of it.

Students talking to each other at the student organization fair

Explore the History and Thinking Behind the Model

Illinois Tech’s new model draws inspiration from a long history of educational reinvention, including the university’s founding during industrial Chicago, the 1940 merger, and the New Bauhaus tradition that helped redefine design education in America.

See the Thinking Behind the Lens

What This Means for Students

Students will continue to pursue their degree programs and access opportunities that empower their career-readiness.

Over time, students will see more opportunities for interdisciplinary study, shared projects, flexible pathways, applied learning, research, and collaboration across fields. The goal is to strengthen the value of an Illinois Tech education for students while preserving the academic rigor and career focus that have long defined the university.

At Illinois Tech, the future has never belonged to one discipline alone. The future belongs to the people prepared to build it together.