"Harvard College is a personal Ivy Organization study college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with about 6,800 undergraduate students as well as about 14,000 postgraduate trainees. Established in 1636 and also called for its very first benefactor, clergyman John Harvard, Harvard is the USA' earliest institution of greater knowing and among the most prestigious on the planet.

The Massachusetts Great as well as General Court authorized Harvard's starting. In its early years, Harvard College mostly educated Congregational and also Unitarian clergy, although it has never been formally affiliated with any kind of denomination. Its educational program as well as pupil body were progressively secularized throughout the 18th century, as well as by the 19th century, Harvard had actually emerged as the main cultural facility among Boston elites. [9] [10] Adhering To the American Civil Battle, Head Of State Charles W. Eliot's lengthy period (1869-- 1909) changed the university and associated expert schools into a modern-day study college; Harvard was a starting participant of the Association of American Colleges in 1900. A. Lawrence Lowell, who succeeded Eliot, further reformed the undergraduate educational program as well as carried out hostile development of Harvard's land holdings as well as physical campus. James Bryant Conant led the college with the Great Clinical Depression and also The Second World War; he began to liberalize admissions after the war.

The university is made up of eleven major scholastic systems-- 10 faculties and also the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Research study-- with campuses throughout Greater Boston: its 209-acre (85 ha) initial undergraduate school is fixated Harvard Lawn in Cambridge, 3 miles (5 kilometres) northwest of Boston; the business college as well as lots of athletics centers, including Harvard Stadium, are throughout the Charles River in the Allston area of Boston; and the medical, dental, and also public health institutions remain in Boston's Longwood Medical Location. Harvard's endowment is valued at $40.9 billion, making it the biggest of any kind of scholastic institution. While the small cost of participation is high, the university's endowment enables it to supply generous, no-loan financial assistance packages as well as utilize need-blind admission. The Harvard Library is the globe's biggest scholastic library system, consisting of 79 specific libraries holding regarding 20.4 million items.

Harvard's graduates consist of 8 U.S. presidents, more than 30 foreign presidents, 188 living billionaires, 369 Rhodes Scholars, and 252 Marshall Scholars. Since March 2020, 160 Nobel laureates, 18 Area Medalists, and also 14 Turing Award winners have been associated as trainees, faculty, or researchers. Additionally, Harvard trainees as well as graduates have actually won 10 Academy Honors, 48 Pulitzer Prizes, and 108 Olympic medals (46 gold, 41 silver, and also 21 bronze), and founded lots of remarkable firms worldwide."