Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a leading national research university and the state of New Jersey's preeminent, comprehensive public institution of higher education. Established in 1766, the university is the eighth oldest higher education institution in the United States. More than 67,000 students and 22,000 faculty and staff learn, work, and serve the public at Rutgers locations across New Jersey and around the world. 

Colonial College

Chartered in 1766 as all-male Queen's College in New Brunswick, New Jersey, the school, affiliated with the Dutch Reformed Church, was renamed Rutgers College in 1825 in honor of trustee and Revolutionary War veteran Colonel Henry Rutgers.

In the mid-19th century, Congress established the nation's land-grant colleges in response to the Industrial Revolution. In 1864, Rutgers prevailed over Princeton to become New Jersey's land-grant institution, tasked with offering educational access to a wider range of students who would be the new workforce for America's expanding businesses, factories, and farms.

Modern University

Access for women arrived in 1918, when the New Jersey College for Women (now Douglass Residential College) was founded. In 1945 and 1956, state legislative acts designated Rutgers as The State University of New Jersey, a public institution. The University of Newark (now Rutgers University–Newark) joined Rutgers in 1946, followed by the College of South Jersey (now Rutgers University–Camden) in 1950, which gave Rutgers a statewide presence.

In 1989, Rutgers University–New Brunswick was invited to join the Association of American Universities, making Rutgers' flagship one of the top 62 research universities in North America. Rutgers' standing as a leading university reached new heights in 2013 when a state legislative act transferred to Rutgers much of the former University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, creating Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences and dramatically expanding Rutgers' mission to include academic medicine and wide-ranging patient care. In the same year, Rutgers University–New Brunswick joined the Big Ten Academic Alliance. In 2016, the university established Rutgers Health, a comprehensive academic health care provider organization, which serves patients throughout New Jersey.

With 31 schools and colleges, Rutgers University offers over 100 undergraduate majors and more than 200 graduate and professional degree programs. The university graduates more than 16,000 students each year and has nearly 470,000 living alumni residing in all 50 states and on six continents.