Universities

The University of Oxford, which is located about 80km west of London, England, is widely believed to be the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the world’s second-oldest surviving university. The University is made up of a variety of institutions, including 38 constituent colleges and a full range of academic departments which are organised into four divisions. All the colleges are self-governing institutions as part of the university, and being a city university, it does not have a main campus. All the buildings and facilities are therefore scattered throughout the city centre. It is famous as the home of the Rhodes Scholarship, one of the world’s oldest and most prestigious scholarships, which has brought graduate students to study at the university for more than a century.

Harvard University is a private, Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which is about 250 km northeast of New York City. It was established in 1636, and its history, influence, and wealth have made it one of the world's most prestigious universities. It is known as the oldest institution of higher learning in the US, and the university is organized into eleven separate academic units with campuses throughout the Boston metropolitan area. Harvard’s alumni include eight U.S. presidents, several foreign heads of state, and more than 60 living billionaires. It has a financial endowment of over $37 billion, making it financially the strongest academic institution in the world.

The University of Cambridge is a collegiate public research university in Cambridge, England, about 120 km north of London. Founded in 1209, Cambridge is the second-oldest university in the English-speaking world and the world’s fourth-oldest surviving university, and it grew out of an association of scholars who left the University of Oxford after a dispute with the townspeople. In 2015, the university had a total income of £1.64 billion and has a combined endowment of around £5.89 billion, which is the largest of any university outside the United States.

Yale University is an American private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, about 100 km northeast of New York City. It was founded in 1701 and is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States. The school was renamed Yale College in 1718 in recognition of a gift from Elihu Yale, who was governor of the British East India Company. Yale is organized into fourteen constituent schools: the original undergraduate college, the Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and twelve professional schools. The university’s assets include an endowment valued at $25.6 billion as of September 2015, which is the second-largest of any educational institution.