Which university, founded in 1636, is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States?

Harvard University, founded in 1636, is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States.

The Massachusetts General Court authorized the college in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. It was initially intended to train clergy and preserve an educated ministry in the young colony.

In 1638, Puritan clergyman John Harvard left the institution £780 and a library of roughly 320 books. The college was named Harvard College in his honor the following year, although Harvard himself was not its founder.

The institution’s official name gradually expanded from college to university. Massachusetts’s 1780 constitution referred to it as a university, and Harvard’s first medical school was established in 1782. Today, Harvard College refers specifically to the undergraduate division.