The Cockrell School of Engineering is one of the eighteen colleges within the University of Texas at Austin. It has more than 8,000 students enrolled in eleven undergraduate and thirteen graduate programs. The college is ranked 10th in the world according to the Academic Ranking of World Universities, 11th nationally for undergraduate programs and 10th nationally for graduate programs by U.S. News & World Report. Nine of the ten undergraduate programs and seven of the eleven graduate programs are ranked in the top ten nationally. Annual research expenditures are over $180 million and the school has the fourth-largest number of faculty in the National Academy of Engineering.

Previously known as the College of Engineering, on July 11, 2007, the University of Texas at Austin renamed the College after 1936 graduate Ernest Cockrell Jr., whose family has over the past 30 years helped to build a $140 million endowment for the College