In 1890, when advanced education was often reserved for society's elite, Chicago minister Frank Wakely Gunsaulus delivered what came to be known as the "Million Dollar Sermon."

A Cook County circuit court decision handed down on April 23, 1940, solidified the merger of the two schools into the Illinois Institute of Technology.

[12] The Midwest College of Engineering,[13] founded in 1967, joined the university in 1986, giving Illinois Tech a presence in west suburban Wheaton with what is today known as the Rice Campus.

As one of the first American universities to host a Navy V-12 program during World War II[18] the school saw a large increase in students and expanded the Armour campus beyond its original 7 acres (2.83 ha).

Illinois Tech experienced its greatest period of growth from 1952 to 1973 under President John T. Rettaliata, a fluid dynamicist whose research accomplishments included work on early development of the jet engine and a seat on the National Aeronautics and Space Council.

(An undergraduate business program focusing on technology and entrepreneurship was launched in fall 2004 and was for a while administratively separate from the Stuart School.

Construction of a veritable wall of Chicago Housing Authority high-rises replaced virtually all of Illinois Tech's neighbors in the 1950s and 1960s, a well-meaning but flawed attempt to improve conditions in an economically declining portion of the city.

The closest high-rise, Stateway Gardens, was located just south of the Illinois Tech campus boundary, the last building of which was demolished in 2006.

The past decade has seen a redevelopment of Stateway Gardens into a new, mixed-income neighborhood dubbed Park Boulevard; the completion of the new central station of the Chicago Police Department a block east of the campus; and major commercial development at Roosevelt Road, just north of the campus, and residential development as close as Michigan Avenue on the east boundary of the school.

[28] The 10-story Downtown Campus at 565 West Adams Street, designed by Gerald Horn of Holabird & Root and built by Illinois Tech in 1992, is home to Illinois Tech's Chicago-Kent College of Law and Institute of Design (ID), as well as the downtown campus for the Stuart School of Business.

The 19-acre Daniel F. and Ada L. Rice Campus in west suburban Wheaton, designed by Solomon Cordwell Buenz & Associates, Inc. for Illinois Tech and dedicated in 1990,[30] offers graduate programs, upper-level undergraduate courses, and continuing professional education.

The five-acre Moffett Campus in southwest suburban Bedford Park was designed in 1947 by Schmidt, Garden, and Erickson and was donated to Illinois Tech in 1988.

[36] Following rapid growth during the Great Migration of African Americans from the South between 1910 and 1920, it became home to numerous African-American-owned businesses and cultural institutions and offered an alternative to the race restrictions that were prevalent in the rest of the city.

The nine extant structures from the period during the Great Migration, when the area became known as the Black Metropolis District, were added jointly to the National Register of Historic Places in 1986[38] and designated a Chicago Landmark in 1998.

[41] The projects were demolished beginning in 1999,[41] and the area began to revitalize, with major renovations to King Drive and many of the historic structures and an influx of new, upscale, housing developments.

The campus is bordered on the west by the Chicago 'L' Red Line, which runs parallel to Lake Michigan north to Rogers Park and south to 95th Street.

[43] Today, Illinois Tech continues to support the Historic Bronzeville area by sponsoring non-for-profits such as The Renaissance Collaborative.

"[51] Known as "the nature poet",[52] Caldwell's plan reinforced van der Rohe's design with "landscaping planted in a free-flowing manner, which in its interaction with the pristine qualities of the architecture, introduce[d] a poetic aspect.

Mies was given carte blanche in the large commission, and the university grew fast enough during and after World War II to allow much of the new plan to be realized.

[54] In 1976, American Institute of Architects named the Illinois Tech campus one of the 200 most significant works of architecture in the United States.

To provide for a flexible, columnless interior, he suspended the roof from four steel girders supported by eight external columns spaced 60 feet apart.

A $15 million renovation, completed in August 2005, modernized the structure with energy-saving mechanicals and windows, along with needed technology upgrades for computers and the Internet—all while carefully preserving the architectural integrity of the building, inside and out.

Helmut Jahn, who studied architecture at Illinois Tech under Mies van der Rohe in the late 1960s, is responsible for the innovative design of the residence hall.

The structure is composed of three separate five-story buildings, joined by exterior glass walls that muffle noise from passing trains on the adjacent "L" tracks.

The design includes a concrete and stainless steel tube that encloses a 530-foot stretch of the Green Line elevated commuter rail ("L") tracks, passing directly over the one-story campus center building.

The newest addition to the Mies Campus came from Chicago architect, and College of Architecture professor John Ronan, who was selected to design the Ed Kaplan Family Institute for Innovation and Tech Entrepreneurship.

[75] In addition to the M.B.A. and PhD, Stuart offers specialized programs in Finance, Mathematical Finance (provided in conjunction with the Illinois Tech Department of Applied Mathematics), Environmental Management and Sustainability (provided in conjunction with the Chicago-Kent College of Law and Department of Civic, Architectural, and Environmental Engineering), Marketing Analytics, and Public Administration.

In anticipation of the opening of The McCormick Tribune Campus Center, the on-campus pub and bowling alley known as "The Bog" ceased operations in 2003.

However, in response to students, faculty, and staff who missed the former campus hangout, The Bog reopened in February 2007 and offers bowling, billiards, table tennis, and video games.

The Bog is also home to the campus bar, which serves beer and wine, and hosts weekly events such as comedians, live bands, or karaoke nights on its stage.