The Timeline of American Universities

Founded in Massachusetts in 1636, Harvard University was the first college of higher education in America. In fact for 57 years Harvard was the only university in America - until the founding of the College of William & Mary in 1693. Yale University was the fourth university to be founded, opening in 1701.

Nine universities in total were founded before the United States of America became a sovereign nation in 1776 after the American Revolution. These nine are collectively known as the colonial colleges. Seven of these nine are part of the Ivy League athletic conference. The eighth Ivy League college, Cornell, was founded after the American Revolution, in 1865.

You can explore when all American universities were originally founded on the Timeline of Higher Education in America interactive map. This map plots the location of every American university based on its foundation date. Adjust the timeline on the map and you can see universities opening up across the USA, sweeping from the east with the westward expansion of the United States.

According to the map America's youngest universities are Indiana University Fort Wayne and Northern Vermont University, both of which were founded in 2018.