The quality, standard and relevance of education, research and consultancy services delivered by both colleges to the society enabled the two Colleges to become very popular in the country and abroad in short period of tme.

Even though the management of the two colleges was officially independent, initiatives were taken by both institutions to work closely, with a vision of creating a full-fledged University. Having a common Board of Governors played a significant role for the establishment of Mekelle University and then to achieve rapid growth after its official inauguration in May 2000. At present, the University has seven colleges: Business and Economics, Dryland Agriculture and Natural Resources, Law and Governance, Social Sciences and Languages, Veterinary Madicine, Natural and Computational Sciences and Health Sciences; and eight institutes: Institute of Pedagogical Sciences, Institute of Paleoenvironment and Heritage Conservation, Ethiopian Institute of Technology-Mekelle, Institute of Water and Environment, Institute of Climate and Society, Institute of Gender, Environment and Development Studies, and Institute of Geo-Information and Earth Observation Sciences.

At present MU hosts over 31,000 students in the regular, continuing education programme and summer, evening, distance education and in-service programes in both undergraduate and graduate programmes.

Mekelle University is thus now a government-funded higher institution with an international reputation for teaching and research and with collaborative understanding with national and international sister institutions. Since its establishment, it has proved to be one of the fastest growing Universities in Ethiopia. The fundamental elements of the University's mission are teaching, research and consultancy. Thus, its ultimate goal is to pursue standards of excellence in teaching, research and community service for the betterment of the society.