140 Fun Facts About College & University

Which university, teaching since around 1088, is regarded as the oldest in continuous operation?

In 1988, 430 rectors signed the Magna Charta Universitatum there to mark its 900th birthday.

In which city is al-Qarawiyyin, founded in 859 and cited by UNESCO as the world's oldest higher-learning institution?

It became a leading centre of learning in the Islamic Golden Age.

The word 'university' comes from the Latin universitas, meaning what?

The full phrase universitas magistrorum et scholarium meant a community of teachers and scholars.

Teaching at Oxford, the oldest university in the English-speaking world, is documented as early as which year?

A medieval legend that Alfred the Great founded it in the 9th century was believed until the 18th century.

By 2025, how many British prime ministers had been educated at Oxford?

Its Bodleian library group, with 11 million volumes on 120 miles of shelving, is Britain's second-largest library.

In which year was the University of Cambridge founded by scholars who had fled Oxford?

Two Oxford scholars had been hanged by the town after the death of a local woman.

In which year was Harvard, the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States, founded?

It was named in 1639 for Puritan clergyman John Harvard, who left it £780 and 320 books.

Roughly how large is Harvard's endowment, the biggest of any university in the world?

Its alumni include several US presidents, 162 Nobel laureates and 188 living billionaires.

America's second-oldest college, chartered in 1693 and named for William III and Mary II, is in which state?

Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe and John Tyler all studied there.

Yale, founded in 1701, took its name in 1718 from Elihu Yale, who was asked for money to do what?

Cotton Mather made the request; the school had begun life as the Collegiate School in Connecticut.

Which Yale secret society meets in a windowless Egypto-Doric 'tomb' built in 1856?

Yale's teams are the Bulldogs, and the mascot is a live dog named Handsome Dan.

Princeton was founded in 1746 under what name?

Two bronze tigers have flanked its main entrance since 1911, replacing a pair of lions.

How many universities make up the Ivy League?

The name became official in 1954 with the athletic conference; all but Cornell were founded in colonial times.

Which is the only Ivy League school not founded during the colonial period?

The other seven make up seven of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the Revolution.

Stanford University was founded in 1885 by Leland and Jane Stanford in memory of whom?

Leland Jr died aged 15; the university opened on the family's Palo Alto farm in 1891.

Which Stanford provost is called a "father of Silicon Valley" for urging students to start local tech firms?

Stanford's teams are the Cardinal, after the colour, and its unofficial mascot is a dancing tree.

MIT was founded in 1861 by which geologist?

He wanted an institution to keep pace with rapid scientific advance; 105 Nobel laureates have since been affiliated with MIT.

In what year was the Rhodes Scholarship, which funds postgraduate study at Oxford, established?

Cecil Rhodes set it up in the eighth and final version of his will.

The 1862 Morrill Act created which kind of American college?

States received federal land to fund colleges teaching agriculture and the mechanical arts.

The world's largest university by enrolment, with more than three million students, is in which country?

Indira Gandhi National Open University was set up in 1985 with a budget of 20 million rupees.

What does the Latin phrase 'alma mater' literally mean?

Lucretius used it for an earth goddess; Cambridge put 'Alma Mater Cantabrigia' on a lactating figure in a mural crown.

Phi Beta Kappa, the oldest academic honour society in the US, was founded in 1776 at which college?

Five students held the first meeting on December 5, 1776; chapters reached Harvard and Yale in 1779.

The Kappa Alpha Society, the first purely social fraternity, was founded in 1825 at which Schenectady institution?

The word 'sorority' was not used until 1874; earlier women's groups called themselves women's fraternities.

The word 'campus', first used academically at Princeton in 1774, is Latin for what?

At Princeton it referred to a large open space on the college grounds.

Which ancient Buddhist centre in Bihar is called the world's first residential university?

It operated for nearly a thousand years, from 427 CE to around 1400.

Which is Germany's oldest university, founded in 1386?

It was the third university in the Holy Roman Empire after Prague and Vienna.

The Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race, first held in 1829, is rowed on which river?

The 4.2-mile course from Putney to Mortlake is more than three times an Olympic distance.

How many times had the men's Boat Race ended in a dead heat by 2025?

Cambridge led the men's series 88 wins to 81 after the 2025 race and has been ahead since 1930.

For much of its history, what did the letters SAT stand for?

The first one, in June 1926, was sat by 8,040 students, many applying to Yale and Smith.

In what year was the first SAT administered?

Since 2007 every US four-year college requiring a test accepts either the SAT or the ACT.

The term MOOC, for massive open online course, was coined in which year?

Dave Cormier coined it for a course called Connectivism and Connective Knowledge; 2012 became 'the year of the MOOC'.

By 2025, how many Nobel Prizes had been won by Cambridge alumni, academics and affiliates?

Newton did many of his experiments at Trinity College; Hawking held the Lucasian chair until 2009.

How many colleges make up the University of Oxford?

Thirty-six are chartered independent colleges, four are permanent private halls and three are societies.

How many 'colonial colleges' were chartered in America before the Revolution?

Seven of them are now Ivy League schools; the others are Rutgers and William & Mary.

Which of these headgear is NOT a traditional form of academic cap?

American doctoral regalia adds gold-strand tassels; UK hoods were once lined with fur ranging from rabbit to ermine.

Which colonial college was reformed in 1779 by Jefferson to open the first university-affiliated American law school?

The reforms also abolished its Divinity School and modernised the curriculum.

What is MIT's not-for-profit online arm, launched in 2012, called?

Its first course, 6.002x on circuits and electronics, opened in March 2012.

Which Oxford library is entitled to a free copy of every book published in the UK?

It is a legal deposit library, like the British Library.

Which building, finished in 1720, is Harvard's oldest still standing?

It stands on Harvard Yard beside University Hall and Memorial Church.

Which Oxford chancellor secured a charter for the University Press in the 1630s?

Laud was later executed during the Civil War; the press he chartered is now the largest university press in the world.

Which sportswriter first used 'Ivy' to describe a group of colleges?

He wrote decades before the formal athletic conference existed.

In which newspaper did the term 'Ivy League' first appear in print, in 1935?

The formal athletic conference did not exist until decades later.

Which Puritan clergyman was the first benefactor and namesake of America's oldest college?

The college took his name in 1639, three years after its founding.

Yale was established in 1701 under what original name?

It was founded by Congregationalist clergy of the Connecticut Colony.

In what year was the first PhD in the United States awarded, at Yale?

Yale organised itself as a university in 1887.

Which songwriter wrote Yale's official fight song 'Bulldog' as an undergraduate?

It is still sung during football games.

In which New Jersey town was Princeton originally founded in 1746?

It moved to Newark in 1747 and to Princeton nine years later.

Under what name was Columbia University founded in 1754?

It was chartered by George II on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhattan.

Which famous journalism and arts award does Columbia University administer each year?

Columbia was also the first US school to grant the MD degree.

Which two former students headed Columbia's board of trustees when it went private in 1787?

The college had been renamed Columbia College in 1784, after the Revolution.

Which statesman founded the University of Pennsylvania and served as its first president?

Penn's medical school was the first in North America.

Which Ivy adopted an 'Open Curriculum' with no general education requirements in 1969?

The change came after student lobbying.

Dartmouth was founded in 1769 to train what group as Christian missionaries?

Its founders were Eleazar Wheelock and Samson Occom.

Roughly how many students attend Dartmouth, the smallest university in the Ivy League?

It sits on a terrace above the Connecticut River in Hanover, New Hampshire.

Which Dartmouth student group started the Winter Carnival tradition in 1911?

It is the nation's largest and oldest collegiate outdoors club.

Which live bear, introduced in 1915, inspired Cornell's unofficial mascot?

Cornell's colours are carnelian and white, and a bear remains the unofficial mascot.

Who co-founded Cornell University with Ezra Cornell in 1865?

Both men were New York state senators at the time.

MIT moved from Boston's Back Bay to its current Cambridge campus in which year?

Its early growth came through research contracts with private industry.

Which MIT hallway 'begins at Lobby 7' despite a name suggesting it has no beginning?

It runs the east-west length of Bosworth's original buildings.

MIT's Pantheon-like Great Dome overlooks which space, where graduation is held each year?

The friezes around it are engraved with the names of great scientists.

MIT's Radiation Laboratory made it the top non-industrial R&D contractor during which war?

Vannevar Bush and others then helped shape federal support for basic science.

Which university's team name refers to a colour, not a bird?

The school has no official mascot; the Tree belongs to the band.

What was established in Palo Alto in 1951 as the first of its kind at any university?

Provost Frederick Terman's entrepreneurial push helped seed Silicon Valley.

Which natural disaster damaged much of Stanford's campus in 1906?

The university had already struggled financially after Leland Stanford's death in 1893.

Caltech was founded in 1891 as a preparatory and vocational school by whom?

It took its present name in 1920.

Which NASA facility does Caltech continue to manage and operate?

Its antecedents were established under Theodore von Kármán between 1936 and 1943.

Caltech's mascot is which animal, described as 'nature's engineer'?

The Caltech Beavers compete in 13 intercollegiate sports.

The first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction happened under which Chicago stadium's stands?

Chicago Pile-1's site is now marked by a Henry Moore sculpture called Nuclear Energy.

The University of Chicago is located in which community area of the city?

It also maintains an overseas campus in Hong Kong.

In what year did Johns Hopkins, considered America's first research university, open?

It was incorporated in 1867 and modelled on the European research institution.

How large was Johns Hopkins's founding bequest, then the largest philanthropic gift in US history?

Hopkins was a Baltimore businessman and Quaker philanthropist.

Who was Johns Hopkins University's first president?

He integrated teaching and research in a way that revolutionised US higher education.

The university renamed for the Duke family in 1924 honours which relative of James B. Duke?

Tobacco magnate James B. Duke created the Duke Endowment and named the school for his late father, Washington Duke.

Which architect largely designed Duke's Gothic West Campus?

The 210-foot Duke Chapel is the campus's centre and highest point.

Duke's Cameron Crazies famously 'tent' for home basketball games against which rival?

Cameron Indoor Stadium is on Duke's West Campus.

Northwestern's mascot before Willie the Wildcat was a live bear cub named what?

The cub was borrowed from Lincoln Park Zoo and blamed for a losing season.

Northwestern University, founded in 1851, is located in which Illinois city?

It is the oldest chartered university in Illinois.

Which Catholic religious order founded the University of Notre Dame in 1842?

Its campus landmarks include the Golden Dome and the Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes.

Notre Dame's Word of Life mural on the Hesburgh Library is nicknamed what by students?

The mural overlooks Notre Dame Stadium.

In what year did Bishop John Carroll found Georgetown, America's oldest Catholic university?

It was also the nation's first federally chartered university.

Georgetown's 'Hoyas' nickname comes from a student chant meaning roughly what?

'Hoya Saxa' mixed Greek and Latin and dates from before 1893.

Roughly how many undergraduate applications did UCLA receive for Fall 2022, a US record?

It enrols about 31,600 undergraduates.

UCLA's 'Bruins' nickname was offered by the student council of which other school in 1926?

UCLA had just joined the Pacific Coast conference.

The University of California's founding campus is named after which Anglo-Irish philosopher?

It was founded in 1868 as California's first land-grant university.

Which Treasury Secretary founded New York University in 1832?

NYU began as a non-denominational, all-male institution near City Hall.

NYU's Bobcat mascot originated from the name of what?

'Bobcat' was short for the Bobst Library computerized catalog.

What breed of dog is Carnegie Mellon's mascot, Scotty?

CMU also has a Tartan newspaper, a Thistle yearbook and a homecoming Céilidh.

Vanderbilt has been the only private school in which athletic conference since 1966?

Cornelius Vanderbilt's $1 million gift was meant to help heal Civil War wounds.

Rice University in Houston was established after its namesake William Marsh Rice was what?

He was found dead by his valet in 1900, and a plot to steal his fortune was uncovered.

What is Ohio State's costumed mascot called?

The school has two fight songs, 'Across the Field' and 'Buckeye Battle Cry'.

Which university runs McDonald Observatory and the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library?

It houses seven museums and seventeen libraries.

Georgia Tech's satellite campus in Europe is located in which French city?

It also has a campus in Savannah, Georgia.

Which US president founded the University of Virginia in 1819?

Its Academical Village is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Which library building sits at the centre of Jefferson's plan for the University of Virginia?

Jefferson planned the Grounds around a library rather than a church; the Rotunda burned in 1895 and was rebuilt in 1899.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison's main campus sits on the shore of which body of water?

It was founded in 1848, the year Wisconsin became a state.

Which Wisconsin virologist co-discovered the enzyme reverse transcriptase in 1969?

The Badger Herald student paper was founded the same year.

Howard University's namesake, a Civil War general, was also commissioner of which agency?

Oliver Otis Howard was both the founder and the namesake.

Howard University, established in 1867, is in which Washington, D.C. neighbourhood?

It is the only HBCU with the top-tier R1 research designation.

How many Purdue graduates have become astronauts, earning it the nickname 'Cradle of Astronauts'?

They include Neil Armstrong and Eugene Cernan, the first and last men to walk on the Moon.

Purdue is home to the world's oldest degree-granting department in which subject?

It also had the first university-owned airport in the US.

Which university's stadium is the largest in the United States and the Western Hemisphere?

Michigan Stadium ranks third in the world.

Which Scottish university was founded in 1413 by a papal bull from Antipope Benedict XIII?

It is the third-oldest university in the English-speaking world.

Which Scottish king's royal charter authorised the University of Edinburgh's founding in 1582?

The city's intellectual boom later earned it the nickname 'Athens of the North'.

Trinity College Dublin's library has housed which illuminated manuscript since 1661?

It also keeps the Trinity College harp and a copy of the Proclamation of the Irish Republic.

Which monarch founded Trinity College Dublin by royal charter in 1592?

Provost Adam Loftus named it after Trinity College, Cambridge.

The London School of Economics was founded in 1895 by members of which group?

Sidney and Beatrice Webb were among the four founders.

LSE's mascot, chosen in 1922 for 'foresight' and 'industrious behaviour', is which animal?

Its motto 'rerum cognoscere causas' comes from Virgil's Georgics.

Founded in 1826, which was the first English institution to admit students of any religion?

Its founders were inspired by the radical ideas of Jeremy Bentham.

Which royal envisioned South Kensington as a cultural district, seeding Imperial College?

Imperial formed in 1907 from the Royal College of Science and the Royal School of Mines.

Which Holy Roman Emperor inspired the founding of the university in Prague in 1347-48?

Pope Clement VI issued the founding bull, modelled on the University of Paris.

Who founded the University of Vienna, the oldest in the German-speaking world, in 1365?

It is associated with 17 Nobel laureates including Erwin Schrödinger.

Which Polish king founded the Jagiellonian University in Kraków in 1364?

It is the oldest university in Poland.

Which Leonese king founded the University of Salamanca in 1218?

It is the oldest university in the Hispanic world.

Portugal's oldest university, chartered by King Denis in 1290, is in which city?

It began in Lisbon before moving permanently in 1537 and became a UNESCO site in 2013.

Which prince founded Leiden, the oldest surviving university in the Netherlands, in 1575?

It was established as a Protestant institution.

Uppsala, founded in 1477, is the oldest university in which region?

The white student cap tradition originated there.

Which is Europe's largest higher-education institution, with over 110,000 students?

It was founded in 1303 by Pope Boniface VIII.

Which Belgian institution is the largest Dutch-language university in the world?

It once accepted only baptised Catholics.

Who was the first woman to become a professor at the Sorbonne?

She had come to Paris from Poland in 1891.

Who founded the College of Sorbonne in Paris in 1257?

It was a constituent college of the University of Paris.

Which physicist is among the 22 Nobel laureates affiliated with ETH Zurich?

ETH counts 22 Nobel laureates in all.

In what year was Moscow University established by imperial decree?

Ivan Shuvalov and Mikhail Lomonosov promoted the idea.

Peking University was founded in 1898 by charter from which Qing emperor?

It began as the Imperial University of Peking.

Tsinghua University's campus in Beijing sits on the site of what?

Established in 1911, its alumni include Xi Jinping and Hu Jintao.

Japan's first modern university, founded in 1877, is in which Tokyo ward?

Its direct precursors include the Tenmongata, founded in 1684.

In 1980, the University of Singapore merged with which private institution to form NUS?

Nanyang was a private university.

Founded in 1850, which is the oldest university in Australia and Oceania?

It was one of the world's first universities to admit students solely on academic merit.

The University of Melbourne's main campus is in which inner suburb?

Founded in 1853, it is one of Australia's six sandstone universities.

Which denomination originally controlled the University of Toronto before it went secular in 1850?

It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as the first institution of higher learning in Upper Canada.

In what year did James McGill's bequest establish the University of McGill College?

McGill, a Scottish merchant, gave his name to the university chartered in 1821.

What is McGill's mascot, introduced at the 2005 Homecoming game, called?

McGill's main campus is on the slope of Mount Royal.

The University of Cape Town began in 1829 under what name?

It gained full university status in 1918.

Which university's main campus, Ciudad Universitaria, is a UNESCO World Heritage site that hosted the 1968 Olympics?

Every Mexican Nobel laureate has been a UNAM alumnus, and the university teaches more than 324,000 students.

North America's first Western-style university, in Mexico, was founded in what year?

UNAM was refounded in its modern secular form by Justo Sierra on 22 September 1910.

How tall is the central tower of Moscow State University, Europe's tallest building until 1990?

The 36-storey tower was one of seven Stalin-era skyscrapers built around Moscow, using Gulag labour.

Al-Azhar University in Cairo, one of the world's oldest, was founded around 970 by which caliphate?

Early students learned the Qur'an and Islamic law alongside logic, grammar and how to calculate the phases of the moon.

Which Ohio college, founded in 1833, is the oldest coeducational liberal arts college in the US?

It admitted African Americans from 1835 and women from 1837, and has a long record of student activism.

Which of the Seven Sisters colleges became coeducational in 1969?

Radcliffe's undergraduate functions were absorbed by Harvard in 1999, leaving five women's colleges in the group.

In what year was the Rhodes Scholarship first opened to women?

It had originally been limited to men from the Commonwealth, Germany and the United States.

In what year was the EU's Erasmus student exchange programme launched?

It is now called Erasmus+ and covers the 27 EU states plus seven associated countries.