EAFIT University is a private university in Colombia’s second largest city of Medellín, and was established in 1960. When founded, the university was a school of management and finance and aimed to educate professionals seeking to overcome new challenges in technology, management and finance.
For 15 years the school offered two-year technological programmes. By 1975 the school underwent reorganisation as a university, offering five-year engineering programmes. For many years the school focused mainly on economics, but in 1997 it opened its school of social sciences and humanities and over the next few years continued to expand by adding further departments including the school of music, which opened as part of a process that saw the university offering more programmes in the fields of the arts.
The university is split into six schools spread across three campuses. Its main campus is in the urban area of El Poblado in Medellín, which boasts scenery where "technology coexists with the fauna and flora of the tropics". Additional campuses are located in Bogotá, Llanogrande Rionegro and Pereira. Courses are available in the faculties of law, humanities, engineering, science and economy and finance.
The university’s motto is "inspira crea transforma", which translates as "inspire, create, transform".
EAFIT University is the only Colombian university to be part of the "100k Strong" initiative, created by former US president Barack Obama to increase opportunities for student study in a number of universities in the Western Hemisphere. The university has also twice been awarded the Ministry of National Education’s Institutional High Quality accreditation, the only Colombian university to be awarded this honour. The university is considered to be one of the top tier universities in Colombia.
