Information about Harvard University education, courses, and more.

Harvard University, one of the eight Ivy League colleges and the oldest US university (established 1636), is known for its high academic standards, selective admissions, and social reputation. The main university campus is in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on the Charles River west of downtown Boston. About 23,000 students attend Harvard.

Harvard originated when a college was founded at New Towne and renamed Cambridge after some of the top colonists’ English universities. In summer 1638, one master taught in a frame house and a “college yard.” Harvard was named after Puritan clergyman John Harvard, who bequeathed the institution his writings and half his fortune.
Harvard was founded with church patronage, but not linked with any religion. Before alumni elected governing board members in 1865, the institution was progressively emancipated from religious and political domination throughout its first two centuries. Charles W. Eliot made Harvard a national powerhouse as president (1869–1909).

Many American intellectual and political developments have been linked to Harvard alumni and professors. Harvard graduated seven U.S. presidents—John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Rutherford B. Hayes, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, and Barack Obama—and many judges, cabinet officials, and legislative leaders before the end of the first decade of the 21st century. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Henry David Thoreau, James Russell Lowell, Henry James, Henry Adams, T.S. Eliot, John Dos Passos, E.E. Cummings, Walter Lippmann, and Norman Mailer were Harvard grads. Francis Parkman, W.E.B. Du Bois, Samuel Eliot Morison, Benjamin Peirce, Wolcott Gibbs, and Louis Agassiz were other Harvard graduates or professors. William James brought experimental psychology to the US at Harvard in the 1870s.

Harvard was established with church funding but is not religious. In its first two centuries, the school was gradually freed from religious and political dominance until alumni chose governing board members in 1865. Harvard became a national powerhouse under president Charles W. Eliot (1869–1909).

Harvard academics and alumni have shaped American thought and politics. Seven U.S. presidents—John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Rutherford B. Hayes, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, and Barack Obama—and numerous judges, cabinet officials, and legislative leaders graduated from Harvard in the first decade of the 21st century. Harvard graduates included Ralph Waldo Emerson, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Henry David Thoreau, James Russell Lowell, Henry James, Henry Adams, T.S. Eliot, John Dos Passos, E.E. Cummings, Walter Lippmann, and Norman Mailer. Other Harvard teachers and alumni included Francis Parkman, W.E.B. Du Bois, Samuel Eliot Morison, Benjamin Peirce, Wolcott Gibbs, and Louis Agassiz. Harvard’s William James introduced experimental psychology in the 1870s.

Radcliffe was a coordinating college until the 1960s, using Harvard teachers and resources. Harvard degrees were not given to Radcliffe graduates until 1963. From then on, Harvard and Radcliffe presidents signed diplomas. Teaching was coeducational at Radcliffe and Harvard College for women.

The 1977 agreement with Harvard University required Radcliffe College to integrate certain functions, but its property and endowments remained separate. The college continued to offer career programs, a publishing course, and graduate-level women’s studies workshops and seminars for undergraduate and graduate students.

Radcliffe and Harvard combined in 1999 to become the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University. The institution provides nondegree educational programs and the study of women, gender, and society, as well as Radcliffe’s prior subjects.