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Yale University

Yale University
Yale University · Public domain · source

Overview

Yale University is a private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States. It is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution.

Yale was established as the Collegiate School in 1701 by Congregationalist clergy of the Connecticut Colony. Originally focused on theology and sacred languages, the school's curriculum expanded to include humanities and sciences by the time of the American Revolution. In the 19th century, the college expanded to include graduate and professional instruction, awarding the first PhD in the United States in 1861 and organizing as a university in 1887. It is one of the founding members of the Association of American Universities. Yale's faculty and student populations grew rapidly after 1890 due to the expansion of the physical campus and its scientific research programs.

Yale is organized into fifteen constituent schools, including the original undergraduate college, the Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and Yale Law School. While the university is governed by the Yale Corporation, each school's faculty oversees its curriculum and degree programs. In addition to a central campus in downtown New Haven, the university owns athletic facilities in western New Haven, a campus in West Haven, and forests and nature preserves throughout New England. As of 2025, Yale's endowment was valued at $44.1 billion, making it the second-largest among all educational institutions and the second-largest among private universities. The Yale University Library, serving all constituent schools, holds more than 15 million volumes and is the third-largest academic library in the United States. Student athletes compete in intercollegiate sports as the Yale Bulldogs in the NCAA Division I Ivy League conference.

As of October 2025, 72 Nobel laureates, 5 Fields medalists, 4 Abel Prize laureates, and 3 Turing Award winners have been affiliated with Yale University. Yale alumni include 5 U.S. presidents, 10 Founding Fathers, 19 U.S. Supreme Court justices, 31 living billionaires, 54 college founders and presidents, as well as numerous heads of state, cabinet members, and governors. The university’s community also includes hundreds of members of Congress, U.S. diplomats, 99 MacArthur Fellows, 263 Rhodes Scholars, 123 Marshall Scholars, 81 Gates Cambridge Scholars, 102 Guggenheim Fellows, and 9 Mitchell Scholars. Current Yale faculty include 73 members of the National Academy of Sciences, 55 members of the National Academy of Medicine, 8 members of the National Academy of Engineering, and 200 members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. The university is also one of the largest producers of Oscar, Emmy, and Grammy winners. Over 200 Yale alumni have competed in the Olympic games and have won over 110 medals (including 55 gold).

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

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  1. The school aims to provide for the child the occupations and activities necessary at each stage of development for his unfolding at that stage. Therefore, she insists that general development instead of the amount of information acquired, shall control the classification of the pupils. Division into groups is made where it is found that the children naturally divide themselves. These groups are called “Life Classes”…

    John Dewey, Schools of to-morrow

    States what Yale University is; the author is tied to Yale University in the knowledge graph.

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  2. G. Van Santvoord, of Oriel College, Oxford, and Yale University. The Press is publisher, on both sides of the Atlantic, to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, many of whose books have been printed at Oxford. Special mention may be made of the first volumes, printed at the Press and recently published, of the British Section of the great _Economic and Social History of the World War_ undertaken by the…

    Oxford University Press, Some Account of the Oxford University Press, 1468-1921

    Names Yale University.

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  3. The simple facts of the case are that in the great majority of human beings the distinctively intellectual interest is not dominant. They have the so-called practical impulse and disposition. In many of those in whom by nature intellectual interest is strong, social conditions prevent its adequate realization. Consequently by far the larger number of pupils leave school as soon as they have acquired the rudiments of…

    John Dewey, The school and society

    The author is tied to Yale University in the knowledge graph.

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Philosophers who discussed Yale University

Related ideas

Place in the tradition

Part of American philosophy.

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