Harvard University (incorporated as The President and Fellows of Harvard College) is a private university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts and a member of the Ivy League.

Harvard University (incorporated as The President and Fellows of Harvard College) is a private university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts and a member of the Ivy League. Established in 1636 by the colonial Massachusetts legislature, Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and currently comprises ten separate academic units. It was also the first corporation in the United States.

Initially called "New College" or "the college at New Towne", the institution was renamed Harvard College on March 13, 1639. It was named after John Harvard, a young clergyman from Southwark, Surrey, an alumnus of the University of Cambridge (after which Cambridge, Massachusetts is named), who bequeathed the College his library of four hundred books and £779 (which was half of his estate), assuring its continued operation. The earliest known official reference to Harvard as a "university" occurs in the new Massachusetts Constitution of 1780.

During his 40-year tenure as Harvard president (1869–1909), Charles William Eliot radically transformed Harvard into the pattern of the modern research university. Eliot's reforms included elective courses, small classes, and entrance examinations. The Harvard model influenced American education nationally, at both college and secondary levels.

Harvard has the second-largest financial endowment of any non-profit organization (behind the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation), standing at $26 billion as of September 2009. Harvard is consistently ranked at the top as a leading academic institution in the world by numerous media and academic rankings.

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