UPE was first organized at Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, in 1967. The international organization now consists of chapters in various colleges and universities in North America and overseas. UPE is the first and only, existing international honor society in the Computing and Information Disciplines. 

The mission of UPE is to recognize academic excellence at both the undergraduate and graduate levels in the Computing and Information Disciplines.

UPE is a member of the Association of College Honor Socieies (ACHS), and has been endorsed by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and the IEEE Computer Society (IEEE-CS).