Yale University

Yale University is a private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States after Harvard and William and Mary, and one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution.

Yale was established as the Collegiate School in 1701 by Congregationalist clergy of the Connecticut Colony. Originally restricted to instructing ministers in theology and sacred languages, the school's curriculum expanded to include humanities and sciences by the time of the American Revolution. In the 19th century, the college expanded to include graduate and professional instruction, awarding the first PhD in the United States in 1861 and organizing as a university in 1887. Yale's faculty and student populations grew rapidly after 1890 due to the expansion of the physical campus and its scientific research programs.

Yale is organized into fifteen constituent schools, including the original undergraduate college, the Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and Yale Law School. While the university is governed by the Yale Corporation, each school's faculty oversees its curriculum and degree programs. In addition to a central campus in downtown New Haven, the university owns athletic facilities in western New Haven, a campus in West Haven, and forests and nature preserves throughout New England. As of 2024^[update], Yale's endowment was valued at $41.4 billion, making it the fourth-largest among all educational institutions and the third-largest among private universities. The Yale University Library, serving all constituent schools, holds more than 15 million volumes and is the third-largest academic library in the United States. Student athletes compete in intercollegiate sports as the Yale Bulldogs in the NCAA Division I Ivy League conference.

As of October 2025, 72 Nobel laureates, 5 Fields medalists, 4 Abel Prize laureates, and 3 Turing Award winners have been affiliated with Yale University. Yale alumni include 5 U.S. presidents, 10 Founding Fathers, 19 U.S. Supreme Court justices, 31 living billionaires, 54 college founders and presidents, as well as numerous heads of state, cabinet members, and governors. The university’s community also includes hundreds of members of Congress, U.S. diplomats, 96 MacArthur Fellows, 263 Rhodes Scholars, 123 Marshall Scholars, 81 Gates Cambridge Scholars, 102 Guggenheim Fellows, and 9 Mitchell Scholars. Current Yale faculty include 73 members of the National Academy of Sciences, 55 members of the National Academy of Medicine, 8 members of the National Academy of Engineering, and 200 members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Over 170 Yale alumni have competed in the Olympic games and have won over 110 medals.

Yale traces its beginnings to "An Act for Liberty to Erect a Collegiate School", a would-be charter passed in New Haven by the General Court of the Colony of Connecticut on October 9, 1701. The Act aimed to establish an institution for the education of ministers and lay leaders. Soon after, a group of ten Congregational ministers, Samuel Andrew, Thomas Buckingham, Israel Chauncy, Samuel Mather (nephew of Increase Mather), Rev. James Noyes II (son of James Noyes), James Pierpont, Abraham Pierson, Noadiah Russell, Joseph Webb, and Timothy Woodbridge, all Harvard alumni, met in the study of Reverend Samuel Russell, in Branford, to donate books to form the school's library. The group, led by James Pierpont, is now known as "The Founders".

Known from its origin as the "Collegiate School", the institution opened in the home of its first rector, Abraham Pierson, who is considered Yale's first president. Pierson lived in Killingworth. The school moved to Saybrook in 1703, when the first treasurer of Yale, Nathaniel Lynde, donated land and a building. In 1716, it moved to New Haven.

Meanwhile, there was a rift forming at Harvard between its sixth president, Increase Mather, and the rest of the Harvard clergy, whom Mather viewed as increasingly liberal, ecclesiastically lax, and overly broad in Church polity. The feud caused the Mathers to champion the Collegiate School in the hope it would maintain the Puritan religious orthodoxy in a way Harvard had not. Rev. Jason Haven, minister at the First Church and Parish in Dedham, Massachusetts, had been considered for the presidency on account of his orthodox theology and "Neatness dignity and purity of Style [which] surpass those of all that have been mentioned", but was passed over due to his "very Valetudinary and infirm State of Health".

In 1718, at the behest of either Rector Samuel Andrew or the colony's Governor Gurdon Saltonstall, Cotton Mather contacted the Boston-born businessman Elihu Yale to ask for money to construct a new building for the college. Through the persuasion of Jeremiah Dummer, Yale, who had made a fortune in Madras while working for the East India Company as the first president of Fort St. George, donated nine bales of goods, which were sold for more than £560, a substantial sum of money. Cotton Mather suggested the school change its name to "Yale College". The name Yale is the Anglicized spelling of the Welsh name Iâl, which had been used for the family estate at Plas yn Iâl, near Llandegla, Wales.