Princeton University
Princeton University is a private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. The institution moved to Newark in 1747 and then to its Mercer County campus in Princeton nine years later. It officially became a university in 1896 and was subsequently renamed Princeton University.
The university is governed by the Trustees of Princeton University and has an endowment of $37.7 billion, the largest endowment per student in the United States. Princeton provides undergraduate and graduate instruction in the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, and engineering to approximately 8,500 students on its main campus spanning within the borough of Princeton. It offers postgraduate degrees through the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, the School of Engineering and Applied Science, the School of Architecture and the Bendheim Center for Finance. The university also manages the Department of Energy's Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory and is home to the NOAA's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory. It is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity" and has one of the largest university libraries in the world.
Princeton uses a residential college system and is known for its eating clubs for juniors and seniors. The university has over 500 student organizations. Princeton students embrace a wide variety of traditions from both the past and present. The university is an NCAA Division I school and competes in the Ivy League. The school's athletic team, the Princeton Tigers, has won the most titles in its conference and has sent many students and alumni to the Olympics.
As of October 2025, 81 Nobel laureates, 16 Fields Medalists and 17 Turing Award laureates have been affiliated with Princeton University as alumni, faculty members, or researchers. In addition, Princeton has been associated with 21 National Medal of Science awardees, 5 Abel Prize awardees, 11 National Humanities Medal recipients, 217 Rhodes Scholars, 137 Marshall Scholars, and
62 Gates Cambridge Scholars. Two U.S. presidents, twelve U.S. Supreme Court justices and numerous living industry and media tycoons and foreign heads of state are all counted among Princeton's alumni body. Princeton has graduated many members of the U.S. Congress and the U.S. Cabinet, including eight secretaries of state, three secretaries of defense and two chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Princeton alumni also include 113 athletes who competed in the Olympics, winning 19 gold medals, 24 silver medals, and 23 bronze medals.
History
Founding
Princeton University, founded as the College of New Jersey, was shaped much in its formative years by the "Log College", a seminary founded by the Reverend William Tennent at Neshaminy, Pennsylvania, in about 1726. While no legal connection ever existed, many of the pupils and adherents from the Log College would go on to financially support and become substantially involved in the early years of the university. While early writers considered it as the predecessor of the university, the idea has been rebuked by Princeton historians.The founding of the university itself originated from a split in the Presbyterian church following the Great Awakening. In 1741, New Light Presbyterians were expelled from the Synod of Philadelphia in defense of how the Log College ordained ministers. The four founders of the College of New Jersey, who were New Lights, were either expelled or withdrew from the Synod and devised a plan to establish a new college, for they were disappointed with Harvard and Yale's opposition to the Great Awakening and dissatisfied with the limited instruction at the Log College. They convinced three other Presbyterians to join them and decided on New Jersey as the location for the college, as at the time, there was no institution between Yale College in New Haven, Connecticut, and the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia; it was also where some of the founders preached. Although their initial request was rejected by the Anglican governor Lewis Morrison, the acting governor after Morrison's death, John Hamilton, granted a charter for the College of New Jersey on October 22, 1746. In 1747, approximately five months after acquiring the charter, the trustees elected Jonathan Dickinson as president and opened in Elizabeth, New Jersey, where classes were held in Dickinson's parsonage. With its founding, it became the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, and one of nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. The founders aimed for the college to have an expansive curriculum to teach people of various professions, not solely ministerial work. Though the school was open to those of any religious denomination, with many of the founders being of Presbyterian faith, the college became the educational and religious capital of Scotch-Irish Presbyterian America.
Colonial and early years
In 1747, following the death of then President Jonathan Dickinson, the college moved from Elizabeth to Newark, New Jersey, as that was where presidential successor Aaron Burr Sr.'s parsonage was located. That same year, Princeton's first charter came under dispute by Anglicans, but on September 14, 1748, the recently appointed governor Jonathan Belcher granted a second charter. Belcher, a Congregationalist, had become alienated from his alma mater, Harvard, and decided to "adopt" the infant college. Belcher would go on to raise funds for the college and donate his 474-volume library, making it one of the largest libraries in the colonies.File:Peale, Charles Willson, John Witherspoon, President.jpg|thumb|John Witherspoon, President of the college and signer of the Declaration of Independence|alt=A portrait of John Witherspoon
In 1756, the college moved again to its present home in Princeton, New Jersey, because Newark was felt to be too close to New York. Princeton was chosen for its location in central New Jersey and by strong recommendation by Belcher. The college's home in Princeton was Nassau Hall, named for the royal William III of England, a member of the House of Orange-Nassau. The trustees of the College of New Jersey initially suggested that Nassau Hall be named in recognition of Belcher because of his interest in the institution; the governor vetoed the request.
Burr, who would die in 1757, devised a curriculum for the school and enlarged the student body. Following the untimely death of Burr and the college's next three presidents, John Witherspoon became president in 1768 and remained in that post until his death in 1794. With his presidency, Witherspoon focused the college on preparing a new generation of both educated clergy and secular leadership in the new American nation. To this end, he tightened academic standards, broadened the curriculum, solicited investment for the college, and grew its size.
A signatory of the Declaration of Independence, Witherspoon and his leadership led the college to becoming influential to the American Revolution. In 1777, the college became the site for the Battle of Princeton. During the battle, British soldiers briefly occupied Nassau Hall before eventually surrendering to American forces led by General George Washington. During the summer and fall of 1783, the Continental Congress and Washington met in Nassau Hall, making Princeton the country's capital for four months; Nassau Hall is where Congress learned of the peace treaty between the colonies and the British. The college did suffer from the revolution, with a depreciated endowment and hefty repair bills for Nassau Hall.
19th century
In 1795, President Samuel Stanhope Smith took office, the first alumnus to become president. Nassau Hall suffered a large fire that destroyed its interior in 1802, which Smith blamed on rebellious students. The college raised funds for reconstruction, as well as the construction of two new buildings. In 1807, a large student riot occurred at Nassau Hall, spurred by underlying distrust of educational reforms by Smith away from the Church. Following Smith's mishandling of the situation, falling enrollment, and faculty resignations, the trustees of the university offered resignation to Smith, which he accepted. In 1812, Ashbel Green was unanimously elected by the trustees of the college to become the eighth president. After the liberal tenure of Smith, Green represented the conservative "Old Side", in which he introduced rigorous disciplinary rules and heavily embraced religion. Even so, believing the college was not religious enough, he took a prominent role in establishing the Princeton Theological Seminary next door. While student riots were a frequent occurrence during Green's tenure, enrollment did increase under his administration.In 1823, James Carnahan became president, arriving as an unprepared and timid leader. With the college riven by conflicting views between students, faculty, and trustees, and enrollment hitting its lowest in years, Carnahan considered closing the university. Carnahan's successor, John Maclean Jr., who was only a professor at the time, recommended saving the university with the help of alumni; as a result, Princeton's alumni association, led by James Madison, was created and began raising funds. With Carnahan and Maclean, now vice-president, working as partners, enrollment and faculty increased, tensions decreased, and the college campus expanded. Maclean took over the presidency in 1854, and led the university through the American Civil War. When Nassau Hall burned down again in 1855, Maclean raised funds and used the money to rebuild Nassau Hall and run the university on an austerity budget during the war years. With a third of students from the college being from the South, enrollment fell. Once many of the Southerners left, the campus became a sharp proponent for the Union, even bestowing an honorary degree to President Lincoln. James McCosh became the college's president in 1868, and lifted the institution out of a low period that had been brought about by the war. During his two decades of service, he overhauled the curriculum, oversaw an expansion of inquiry into the sciences, recruited distinguished faculty, and supervised the addition of a number of buildings in the High Victorian Gothic style to the campus. McCosh's tenure also saw the creation and rise of many extracurricular activities, like the Princeton Glee Club, the Triangle Club, the first intercollegiate football team, and the first permanent eating club, as well as the elimination of fraternities and sororities. In 1879, Princeton conferred its first doctorates on James F. Williamson and William Libby, both members of the Class of 1877.
Francis Patton took the presidency in 1888, and although his election was not met by unanimous enthusiasm, he was well received by undergraduates. Patton's administration was marked by great change, for Princeton's enrollment and faculty had doubled. At the same time, the college underwent large expansion and social life was changing in reflection of the rise in eating clubs and burgeoning interest in athletics. In 1893, the honor system was established, allowing for unproctored exams. In 1896, the college officially became a university, and as a result, it officially changed its name to Princeton University. In 1900, the Graduate School was formally established. Even with such accomplishments, Patton's administration remained lackluster with its administrative structure and towards its educational standards. Due to profile changes in the board of trustees and dissatisfaction with his administration, he was forced to resign in 1902.