The Oldest Universities Still Teaching Today

Bologna has awarded degrees since 1088, Oxford taught by 1096, and Al-Azhar in Cairo has operated as a center of Islamic scholarship since 970. Sorbonne dates to 1257, Heidelberg to 1386, and St Andrews...

our database traces institutions across ten centuries. Continuity is the remarkable part: wars, plagues, and revolutions passed, yet lectures continued.

Ancient universities shaped the degree, the faculty, and the dissertation traditions that every modern campus inherits..