Founded 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 is also the first and oldest 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 the London Borough of Southwark who bequeathed the College his library of four hundred books and £779, assuring its continued operation. The earliest known official reference to Harvard as a "university" occurs in the new Massachusetts Constitution of 1780.
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

Quick Facts:

Established
1636

Faculty
About 2,100 faculty members

Students
Harvard College - About 6,700
Graduate and professional students - About 13,600
Total - About 20,000

School color
Crimson

Living alumni
More than 320,000, over 270,000 in the U.S., nearly 50,000 in some 191 other countries

Nobel laureates
43 current and former faculty members

Motto
Veritas (Latin for "truth")

Library collection
About 16.2 million volumes

Undergraduate Cost (2009-10 academic year)
Tuition - $33,696
Total including room, board, student service fees - $48,868

Harvard University President
Drew Gilpin Faust

Naming
The name Harvard comes from the college's first benefactor, the young minister John Harvard of Charlestown. Upon his death in 1638, he left half his estate to the institution established in 1636 by vote of the Great and General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.