College & University Trivia
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189 free College & University trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
40 free College & University trivia questions with answers. This university trivia quiz roams the world's campuses: the medieval origins of Bologna, al-Qarawiyyin, Oxford and Cambridge, the colonial colleges that became Harvard, William & Mary, Yale and Princeton, the eight Ivies, Stanford's grieving founders, MIT's mission, land-grant colleges, Rhodes Scholarships and the world's largest university by enrolment. It also has plenty of fun college trivia questions for students and alumni: where the word 'campus' was first used, what alma mater actually means, the first fraternity, the Boat Race, the mortarboard, the SAT's original name and the birth of the MOOC. Easy questions suit orientation-week icebreakers and dorm quiz nights; the harder ones on dates and founders will test faculty too. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries before publishing.
30 of 189 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which university, teaching since around 1088, is regarded as the oldest in continuous operation?
Bologna
The University of Bologna, teaching since about 1088, is the oldest in continuous operation; in 1988 rectors from across Europe signed the Magna Charta Universitatum there for its 900th anniversary.
Q 02In which city is al-Qarawiyyin, founded in 859 and cited by UNESCO as the world's oldest higher-learning institution?
Fez
Al-Qarawiyyin is in Fez, Morocco; founded by Fatima al-Fihri in 859, it became a leading centre of learning in the Islamic Golden Age.
Q 03The word 'university' comes from the Latin universitas, meaning what?
A whole or community
The full phrase universitas magistrorum et scholarium meant a community of teachers and scholars.
Q 04Teaching at Oxford, the oldest university in the English-speaking world, is documented as early as which year?
1096
Teaching at Oxford is documented as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world; a legend that Alfred the Great founded it was long believed.
Q 05Which Oxford college did Cardinal Wolsey found in 1525 as Cardinal College?
Christ Church
Christ Church began as Wolsey's Cardinal College in 1525; after his fall Henry VIII refounded it in 1546 as Christ Church, whose chapel doubles as Oxford's cathedral.
Q 06In which year was the University of Cambridge founded by scholars who had fled Oxford?
1209
Cambridge was founded in 1209 by scholars who left Oxford after the town hanged two students following a local woman's death.
Q 07In which year was Harvard, the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States, founded?
1636
Harvard was founded in 1636 by a vote of the Massachusetts Bay Colony's legislature; it took its name in 1639 from clergyman John Harvard, who left it half his estate and his library.
Q 08Harvard's Widener Library honours an alumnus who died in the sinking of which ship?
Titanic
Harry Elkins Widener, Harvard class of 1907, died on the Titanic in 1912; his mother Eleanor funded Widener Library in his memory, and it opened in 1915.
Q 09America's second-oldest college, chartered in 1693 and named for William III and Mary II, is in which state?
Virginia
The College of William & Mary is in Williamsburg, Virginia; chartered in 1693, it educated Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe and John Tyler.
Q 10Yale, founded in 1701, took its name in 1718 from Elihu Yale, who was asked for money to do what?
Construct a new building
Cotton Mather asked Elihu Yale to help construct a new building in New Haven; Yale sent goods that sold for £562, and the college took his name in 1718.
Q 11Which Yale secret society meets in a windowless Egypto-Doric 'tomb' built in 1856?
Skull and Bones
Skull and Bones, founded in 1832, has met since 1856 in its windowless 'Tomb' on High Street in New Haven; members have included William Howard Taft and both Presidents Bush.
Q 12Princeton was founded in 1746 under what name?
The College of New Jersey
Princeton was chartered in 1746 as the College of New Jersey and took its present name in 1896; bronze tigers have flanked Nassau Hall's entrance since 1911.
Q 13How many universities make up the Ivy League?
Eight
Eight: Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Penn, Princeton and Yale; the name became official in 1954 when the athletic conference was formed.
Q 21What does the Latin phrase 'alma mater' literally mean?
Nourishing mother
Alma mater is Latin for 'nourishing mother'; Romans used it for goddesses such as Ceres, and Cambridge's old printer's device shows 'Alma Mater Cantabrigia' as a nursing figure.
Q 22Phi Beta Kappa, the oldest academic honour society in the US, was founded in 1776 at which college?
William & Mary
Five students held the first meeting on December 5, 1776; chapters reached Harvard and Yale in 1779.
Q 23The Kappa Alpha Society, the first purely social college fraternity, was founded in 1825 where?
Union
Kappa Alpha Society was founded at Union College in Schenectady, New York, in November 1825; Union is nicknamed the 'Mother of Fraternities' for it and its successors.
Q 14Which is the only Ivy League school not founded during the colonial period?
Cornell
Cornell was chartered in 1865, after the Civil War; the other seven Ivies were all founded as colonial colleges before the Revolution.
Q 15Stanford University was founded in 1885 by Leland and Jane Stanford in memory of whom?
Their only child
Leland Stanford Jr, their only child, died of typhoid in 1884 aged 15; the university opened on the family's Palo Alto farm in 1891.
Q 16Which Stanford provost is called a "father of Silicon Valley" for urging students to start local tech firms?
Frederick Terman
Frederick Terman, Stanford's engineering dean and later provost, pushed students such as Hewlett and Packard to found firms nearby, earning the title 'father of Silicon Valley'.
Q 17MIT was founded in 1861 by which geologist?
William Barton Rogers
Geologist William Barton Rogers secured MIT's Massachusetts charter in 1861 to teach applied science; classes began in 1865 after the Civil War.
Q 18In what year was the Rhodes Scholarship, which funds postgraduate study at Oxford, established?
1902
The Rhodes Scholarship was created in 1902 under the will of Cecil Rhodes, who died that March; the first scholars came up to Oxford in 1903.
Q 19The 1862 Morrill Act created which kind of American college?
Land-grant colleges
The Morrill Act gave each state federal land to endow land-grant colleges teaching agriculture, engineering and military tactics alongside classical studies.
Q 20Which Indian city's university was founded in 1857, the same year as Bombay and Madras?
Calcutta
The University of Calcutta was founded in January 1857, months before Bombay and Madras; the three were modelled on the University of London as examining bodies.
Q 24The word 'campus', first used academically at Princeton in 1774, is Latin for what?
Field
Campus is Latin for 'field'; at Princeton in 1774 it referred to the open field in front of Nassau Hall, and the usage spread to other colleges.
Q 25Which ancient Buddhist centre in Bihar is called the world's first residential university?
Nalanda
Nalanda, near Rajgir in Bihar, was founded under the Gupta king Kumaragupta I in the 5th century and housed thousands of monks until it was sacked around 1200.
Q 26Which is Germany's oldest university, founded in 1386?
Heidelberg
Heidelberg, founded in 1386, is Germany's oldest university and was the third in the Holy Roman Empire after Prague (1348) and Vienna (1365).
Q 27The Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race, first held in 1829, is rowed on which river?
The Thames
The Boat Race is rowed on the Thames in London over the 4.2-mile course from Putney to Mortlake; the first race, in 1829, was held at Henley.
Q 28In which year did the Boat Race famously end in a dead heat?
1877
The 1877 race was declared a dead heat by finish judge 'Honest John' Phelps; Oxford always maintained they had won by several feet.
Q 29For much of its history, what did the letters SAT stand for?
Scholastic Aptitude Test
It was the Scholastic Aptitude Test from its first sitting until 1990, briefly the Scholastic Assessment Test, and the College Board later declared the letters stand for nothing.
Q 30In what year was the first SAT administered?
1926
The first SAT was given on June 23, 1926 to about 8,000 students; psychologist Carl Brigham adapted it from the Army's First World War intelligence tests.